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撒哈拉以南非洲的早期粮食生产

Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa

更新世末期（大约公元前10000年），人们或许已经在非洲西部和中部的热带雨林周边运用粮食生产技术，例如非洲山药等根茎植物在这些地区的普遍种植使人们意识到粮食种植的优势。

At the end of the Pleistocene (around 10,000 B.C.), the technologies of food production may have already been employed on the fringes of the rain forests of western and central Africa, where the common use of such root plants as the African yam led people to recognize the advantages of growing their own food.

如果将顶部进行再植，山药就很容易再次发芽。

The yam can easily be resprouted if the top is replanted.

这一原始的蔬菜栽培形式（培养块根作物或乔木作物）或许已经成为一种经济传统。在此基础上，人们开始在撒哈拉南部边境地带的草原南部使用嫁接技术对夏季降雨粮食作物进行耕种。

This primitive form of “vegeculture” (cultivation of root and tree crops) may have been the economic tradition onto which the cultivation of summer rainfall cereal crops was grafted as it came into use south of the grassland areas on the Sahara’s southern borders.

公元前5000年之后，撒哈拉地区逐渐干涸，游牧民族（牧民）沿主要河流南迁至西非和苏丹的热带稀树草原地带。

As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C., pastoral peoples (cattle herders) moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan.

到公元前3000年，正如古埃及文明沿尼罗河畔成形一样，这些远在南方的游牧民族定居在东非高原的中心地带。

By 3000 B.C., just as ancient Egyptian civilization was coming into being along the Nile, they had settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south.

东非高原是理想的养牛国度，也是如今著名的牧牛民族马赛人的家园。

The East African highlands are ideal cattle country and the home today of such famous cattle-herding peoples as the Masai.

直到大约公元前3300年第一批牧牛人出现时，这一高地上居住着狩猎采集者，这些人生活在平原周边的山区。

The highlands were inhabited by hunter-gatherers living around mountains near the plains until about 3300 B.C., when the first cattle herders appeared.

这些牧牛人或许会在雨季和旱季在不同的固定定居点搬迁，他们在旱季以打猎为生，在雨季以牲畜和农业为生。

These cattle people may have moved between fixed settlements during the wet and dry seasons, living off hunting in the dry months and their own livestock and agriculture during the rains.

和其他地区的情况一样，在非洲养牛的要求也很高。

As was the case elsewhere, cattle were demanding animals in Africa.

不论牛群数量的大小，至少每24小时就要饮水，同时需要大片广阔的草场。

They required water at least every 24 hours and large tracts of grazing grass if herds of any size were to be maintained.

其中的奥秘在于对牧场的精心挑选，尤其是季节性降雨对全年放牧质量会产生显著差异的那些环境。

The secret was the careful selection of grazing land, especially in environments where seasonal rainfall led to marked differences in graze quality throughout the year.

即便是中等规模的牛群也需要大量的土地和相当大的移动性。

Even modest cattle herds required plenty of land and considerable mobility.

为了获得这样的土地，牛群通常需要迁移相当长的距离，甚至需要从夏季草场迁至冬季草场。

To acquire such land often required moving herds considerable distances, even from summer to winter pastures.

同时，牛群的主人们不得不在没有采采蝇的地区放牧。

At the same time, the cattle owners had to graze their stock in tsetse-fly-free areas.

采采蝇会导致人和牲畜患上昏睡症，唯一的保护方法就是避免在这些地区定居或务农，这一约束条件严重限制了牧牛农民在非洲东部和中部的移动性。

The only protection against human and animal sleeping sickness, a disease carried by the tsetse fly, was to avoid settling or farming such areas— a constraint severely limiting the movements of cattle-owning farmers in eastern and central Africa.

因此，规模较小的牛群迅速遍布南部适宜放牧的地区。

As a result, small cattle herds spread south rapidly in areas where they could be grazed.

在谷物农业生产占据撒哈拉沙漠南端之前的很长一段时间内，在非洲东部和南部热带稀树草原林地的狩猎采集者们或许已经开始饲养牛群以及其他家养动物了，这些家畜是通过礼物交换或者打劫周边的放牧人而获得的。

Long before cereal agriculture took hold far south of the Sahara, some hunter-gatherer groups in the savanna woodlands of eastern and southern Africa may have acquired cattle, and perhaps other domesticated animals, by gift exchange or through raids on herding neighbors.

与流行观点不同的是，并没有“纯粹的”牧民，即只依靠牧群生存的社会。

Contrary to popular belief, there is no such phenomenon as “pure” pastoralists, a society that subsists on its herds alone.

为逃避干旱而南下的撒哈拉牧民几乎也都在种植高粱、小米等其他热带降雨作物。

The Saharan herders who moved southward to escape drought were almost certainly also cultivating sorghum, millet, and other tropical rainfall crops.

到公元前1500年，谷物农业生产已遍布撒哈拉沙漠南部的热带稀树草原地带。

By 1500 B.C., cereal agriculture was widespread throughout the savanna belt south of the Sahara.

依靠所谓的游耕农业，小型农业群落遍布西非东部的草原和森林边缘。

Small farming communities dotted the grasslands and forest margins of eastern West Africa, all of them depending on what is called shifting agriculture.

这种农业生产涉及清理林地、在清理过的土地上将砍倒的灌木丛进行焚烧、将灰烬混合到土壤之中，然后在这些准备好的田地上耕种。

This form of agriculture involved clearing woodland, burning the felled brush over the cleared plot, mixing the ash into the soil, and then cultivating the prepared fields.

几年之后，土壤会变得贫瘠，这些农民会迁移至新的林地进行开垦，让之前荒废的田地休耕。

After a few years, the soil was exhausted, so the farmer moved on, exploiting new woodland and leaving the abandoned fields to lie fallow.

通常被成为刀耕火种的游耕农业特别适合生活在热带稀树草原地区的没有犁的农民，因为这种谷物种植方式仅需消耗最少的力气。

Shifting agriculture, often called slash-and-burn, was highly adaptive for savanna farmers without plows, for it allowed cereal farming with the minimal expenditure of energy.

在外行看来，清除和燃烧林地的过程看似是缺乏计划的，但事实并非如此。

The process of clearance and burning may have seemed haphazard to the uninformed eye, but it was not.

除了一些条件较好的地区，例如定期被洪水淹没的泛滥平原，地处热带地区的非洲土壤的肥力只处在中等甚至偏下的水平。

Except in favored areas, such as regularly inundated floodplains, tropical Africa’s soils were of only moderate to low fertility.

农耕的技巧就在于对土地的细心筛选，换言之，知道哪些是易于耕种的轻质土壤，能够用小锄头轻松翻种，并且可以在几年的耕种之后，依旧保持土壤的肥力，因为粮食植物会迅速消耗掉土壤中的氮和其他营养物。

The art of farming was careful soil selection, that is, knowing which soils were light and easily cultivable, could be readily turned with small hoes, and would maintain their fertility over several years’ planting, for cereal crops rapidly remove nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil.

一旦生根发芽，刀耕火种的农业会迅速扩大其范围，正如同一个个村落出现在新土地上一样，有专家估计仅仅用了两百年的时间，它就覆盖了从非洲东部到南部两千公里范围的土地。

Once it had taken hold, slash-and-burn agriculture expanded its frontiers rapidly as village after village took up new lands, moving forward so rapidly that one expert has estimated it took a mere two centuries to cover 2,000 kilometers from eastern to southern Africa.

According to paragraph 1, which of the following is true of early food production by the end of the Pleistocene?

Paragraph 2 mentions all of the following as developments in Sub-Saharan Africa from 5000 to 3000 B.C. EXCEPT:

Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 2 about the pastoral peoples in the East African Highlands around 3300 B.C.?

The word “modest” in the passage is closest in meaning to

Paragraph 3 mentions all of the following as reasons that raising cattle in Africa was demanding EXCEPT:

According to paragraph 3, the presence of the tsetse fly in eastern and central Africa caused which of the following?

Paragraph 4 indicates which of the following about shifting agriculture?

Which of the following best describes the relationship of paragraph 5 to paragraph 4?

Look at the four squares  that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Southern Africa was, however, relatively free of tsetse flies.  Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square  to add the sentence to the passage.

Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa At the end of the Pleistocene (around 10,000 B.C.), the technologies of food production may have already been employed on the fringes of the rain forests of western and central Africa, where the common use of such root plants as the African yam led people to recognize the advantages of growing their own food. The yam can easily be resprouted if the top is replanted. This primitive form of “vegeculture” (cultivation of root and tree crops) may have been the economic tradition onto which the cultivation of summer rainfall cereal crops was grafted as it came into use south of the grassland areas on the Sahara’s southern borders. As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C., pastoral peoples (cattle herders) moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan. By 3000 B.C., just as ancient Egyptian civilization was coming into being along the Nile, they had settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south. The East African highlands are ideal cattle country and the home today of such famous cattle-herding peoples as the Masai. The highlands were inhabited by hunter-gatherers living around mountains near the plains until about 3300 B.C., when the first cattle herders appeared. These cattle people may have moved between fixed settlements during the wet and dry seasons, living off hunting in the dry months and their own livestock and agriculture during the rains. As was the case elsewhere, cattle were demanding animals in Africa. They required water at least every 24 hours and large tracts of grazing grass if herds of any size were to be maintained. The secret was the careful selection of grazing land, especially in environments where seasonal rainfall led to marked differences in graze quality throughout the year. Even modest cattle herds required plenty of land and considerable mobility. To acquire such land often required moving herds considerable distances, even from summer to winter pastures.  At the same time, the cattle owners had to graze their stock in tsetse-fly-free areas.  The only protection against human and animal sleeping sickness, a disease carried by the tsetse fly, was to avoid settling or farming such areas— a constraint severely limiting the movements of cattle-owning farmers in eastern and central Africa.  As a result, small cattle herds spread south rapidly in areas where they could be grazed.  Long before cereal agriculture took hold far south of the Sahara, some hunter-gatherer groups in the savanna woodlands of eastern and southern Africa may have acquired cattle, and perhaps other domesticated animals, by gift exchange or through raids on herding neighbors. Contrary to popular belief, there is no such phenomenon as “pure” pastoralists, a society that subsists on its herds alone. The Saharan herders who moved southward to escape drought were almost certainly also cultivating sorghum, millet, and other tropical rainfall crops. By 1500 B.C., cereal agriculture was widespread throughout the savanna belt south of the Sahara. Small farming communities dotted the grasslands and forest margins of eastern West Africa, all of them depending on what is called shifting agriculture. This form of agriculture involved clearing woodland, burning the felled brush over the cleared plot, mixing the ash into the soil, and then cultivating the prepared fields. After a few years, the soil was exhausted, so the farmer moved on, exploiting new woodland and leaving the abandoned fields to lie fallow. Shifting agriculture, often called slash-and-burn, was highly adaptive for savanna farmers without plows, for it allowed cereal farming with the minimal expenditure of energy. The process of clearance and burning may have seemed haphazard to the uninformed eye, but it was not. Except in favored areas, such as regularly inundated floodplains, tropical Africa’s soils were of only moderate to low fertility. The art of farming was careful soil selection, that is, knowing which soils were light and easily cultivable, could be readily turned with small hoes, and would maintain their fertility over several years’ planting, for cereal crops rapidly remove nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil. Once it had taken hold, slash-and-burn agriculture expanded its frontiers rapidly as village after village took up new lands, moving forward so rapidly that one expert has estimated it took a mere two centuries to cover 2,000 kilometers from eastern to southern Africa.