Let's turn our attention now to the farming technology available at that time.

现在我们把注意力转向当时的农业科技方面。

Before the cereal crops could be planted, it would have been necessary to clear the forest and to break the ground by ploughing.

在谷物庄稼被种植前，还应该需要把森林清理出来，还要用犁来抛开土壤。

The stone blade of a plough has been discovered during excavation in County Mayo in western Ireland.

有一个犁的石制刀刃在西爱尔兰美育郡开发古迹的时候被发现出来。

The body of the plough would have been of wood and could have been drawn by people, but it's also likely that cattle were used.

犁的杆身是木质的，可以让人来拉，但有时候可能也会用牛来拉。

Now, the cultivation of crops and the husbandry of livestock brought about changes in people's lifestyle such as the type of shelters they made.

庄稼的种植以及牲畜的畜牧业改变了人们的生活习惯，比如他们建造遮蔽物的类型。

For one thing, instead of moving from place to place they needed permanent dwellings.

其中一点，为了取代到处迁徙，他们需要永久的居住地。

The stone axes used to chop down trees to make these dwellings were far superior to any that the Stone Age hunter-gatherers used.

用石斧来砍树使得建造这些住宅比过去石器时代同样靠狩猎和采集为生的人们高效很多。

To make the axes, sources of suitable stone had to be found and systematically exploited.

为了造出这些斧子，人们找到了合适的石材并且系统化的去开发这些石材。

These so-called 'axe factories' were really quarries rather than factories, as the manufacture of the axes wasn't regularly performed on the quarry site.

那些被叫做“斧子工厂”的地方实际上更多的是采石厂而非工厂，因为在采石厂那里并没有进行成规模的斧子制造。

However, after the axe had been chipped into shape, they needed water and sand for grinding and polishing, so a high mountainside wouldn't have been an appropriate place for this.

然而当斧子被凿出了应有的形状之后，他们再用水和沙子来进行打磨和抛光，所以在山上做这些工序就不合适了。

So this final stage of the manufacture must have been carried out close to water and sure enough, there's ample evidence of this at coastal sites.

所以造斧子的最后阶段应该会被转移到离水很近的地方，而且可以确定的是海岸附近还有充足的证据可以证明这些。

Now it's clear that these Neolithic axes were transported all over Ireland, as well as to Scotland and the south of England.

很显然这些新石器时代的斧子被运送到整个爱尔兰，同样还运到了苏格兰以及英格兰南部。

It's not really surprising that axes from 'axe factories' in England have also been found in Ireland.

所以在爱尔兰发现有英格兰“斧子工厂”造出来的斧子也就不足为奇了。

At the very least, this indicates that there was a link between the two islands during that period.

最起码来说，这表明了在那个时期这两个岛之间是存在联系的。

One of the most useful innovations of the colonizers was pottery making, which was quite unknown to Irish hunter-gatherers.

当时这些移民者最有用的发明之一是陶器的制作，本身的那些爱尔兰狩猎者几乎不知道这些。

The pottery was probably made by shaping clay into a ball with the hand, and then hollowing it until the walls were the right thickness.

陶器很可能是先用手将粘土捏成一个球型，然后再把里面掏空，直到陶器的器壁达到合适的厚度为止。

After firing, the outside was often polished.

然后在烧制之后，锅的外侧经常会被抛光。

This would have helped the pots to retain water, as they weren't glazed.

这样能让锅把水存住，因为这些锅都没有上釉。

Now we know that the clay used usually came from local sources, which suggests that manufacture was on a fairly small scale, even though thousands of fragments are usually found at Neolithic sites.

我们现在知道这些粘土通常来自于当地的一些资源，这也意味着锅的制造规模是相对比较小的，即便有成千上万的碎片在新石器时代场址中被发现出来。

In the course of time decoration began to appear.

装饰品在之后的一段时间也出现了。

At first this looked like a series of stitches and was just around the tops of the pots.

最开始这些装饰看上去像是一串缝上去的线，而且只在锅盖的周围有。

This could have been an imitation of earlier vessels which were made of leather sewn onto wood.

这可能是对更早期容器的一种模仿，那种容器是用皮革缝在木头上做成的。

Then eventually pots with decoration all over...

后来这些装饰布满了锅……