The work of the old master is lightly incised on reindeer21 horn, and represents two horses, of a very early and heavy type, following one another, with heads stretched forward, as if sniffing22 the air suspiciously in search of enemies. The horses would certainly excite unfavourable comment at Newmarket. Their 'points' are undoubtedly24 coarse and clumsy: their heads are big, thick, stupid, and ungainly; their manes are bushy and ill-defined; their legs are distinctly feeble and spindle-shaped; their tails more closely resemble the tail of the domestic pig than that of the noble animal beloved with a love passing the love of women by the English aristocracy. Nevertheless there is little (if any) reason to doubt that my very old master did, on the whole, accurately25 represent the ancestral steed of his own exceedingly remote period. There were once horses even as is the horse of the prehistoric26 Dordonian artist. Such clumsy, big-headed brutes27, dun in hue29 and striped down the back like modern donkeys, did actually once roam over the low plains where Paris now stands, and browse30 off lush grass and tall water-plants around the quays31 of Bordeaux and Lyons. Not only do the bones of the contemporary horses, dug up in caves, prove this, but quite recently the Russian traveller Prjevalsky (whose name is so much easier to spell than to pronounce) has discovered a similar living horse, which drags on an obscure existence somewhere in the high table-lands of Central Asia. Prjevalsky's horse (you see, as I have only to write the word, without uttering it, I don't mind how often or how intrepidly32 I use it) is so singularly like the clumsy brutes that sat, or rather stood, for their portraits to my old master that we can't do better than begin by describing him in propria persona.
The horse family of the present day is divided, like most other families, into two factions33, which may be described for variety's sake as those of the true horses and the donkeys, these latter including also the zebras, quaggas, and various other unfamiliar34 creatures whose names, in very choice Latin, are only known to the more diligent35 visitors at the Sunday Zoo. Now everybody must have noticed that the chief broad distinction between these two great groups consists in the feathering of the tail. The domestic donkey, with his near congeners, the zebra and co., have smooth short-haired tails, ending in a single bunch or fly-whisk of long hairs collected together in a tufted bundle at the extreme tip. The horse, on the other hand, besides having horny patches or callosities on both fore1 and hind36 legs, while the donkeys have them on the fore legs only, has a hairy tail, in which the long hairs are almost equally distributed from top to bottom, thus giving it its peculiarly bushy and brushy appearance. But Prjevalsky's horse, as one would naturally expect from an early intermediate form, stands halfway37 in this respect between the two groups, and acts the thankless part of a family mediator38; for it has most of its long tail-hairs collected in a final flourish, like the donkey, but several of them spring from the middle distance, as in the genuine Arab, though never from the very top, thus showing an approach to the true horsey habit without actually attaining39 that final pinnacle40 of equine glory. So far as one can make out from the somewhat rude handicraft of my prehistoric Phidias the horse of the quaternary epoch had much the same caudal peculiarity41; his tail was bushy, but only in the lower half. He was still in the intermediate stage between horse and donkey, a natural mule42 still struggling up aspiringly toward perfect horsehood. In all other matters the two creatures—the cave man's horse and Prjevalsky's—closely agree. Both display large heads, thick necks, coarse manes, and a general disregard of 'points' which would strike disgust and dismay into the stout43 breasts of Messrs. Tattersall. In fact over a T.Y.C. it may be confidently asserted, in the pure Saxon of the sporting papers, that Prjevalsky's and the cave man's lot wouldn't be in it. Nevertheless a candid44 critic would be forced to admit that, in spite of clumsiness, they both mean staying.
So much for the two sitters; now let us turn to the artist who sketched45 them. Who was he, and when did he live? Well, his name, like that of many other old masters, is quite unknown to us; but what does that matter so long as his work itself lives and survives? Like the Comtists he has managed to obtain objective immortality47. The work, after all, is for the most part all we ever have to go upon. 'I have my own theory about the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey,' said Lewis Carroll (of 'Alice in Wonderland') once in Christ Church common room: 'it is that they weren't really written by Homer, but by another person of the same name.' There you have the Iliad in a nutshell as regards the authenticity48 of great works. All we know about the supposed Homer (if anything) is that he was the reputed author of the two unapproachable Greek epics49; and all we know directly about my old master, viewed personally, is that he once carved with a rude flint flake50 on a fragment of reindeer horn these two clumsy prehistoric horses. Yet by putting two and two together we can make, not four, as might be naturally expected, but a fairly connected history of the old master himself and what Mr. Herbert Spencer would no doubt playfully term 'his environment.'
The work of art was dug up from under the firm concreted floor of a cave in the Dordogne. That cave was once inhabited by the nameless artist himself, his wife, and family. It had been previously51 tenanted by various other early families, as well as by bears, who seem to have lived there in the intervals53 between the different human occupiers. Probably the bears ejected the men, and the men in turn ejected the bears, by the summary process of eating one another up. In any case the freehold of the cave was at last settled upon our early French artist. But the date of his occupancy is by no means recent; for since he lived there the long cold spell known as the Great Ice Age, or Glacial Epoch, has swept over the whole of Northern Europe, and swept before it the shivering descendants of my poor prehistoric old master. Now, how long ago was the Great Ice Age? As a rule, if you ask a geologist54 for a definite date, you will find him very chary55 of giving you a distinct answer. He knows that the chalk is older than the London clay, and the oolite than the chalk, and the red marl than the oolite; and he knows also that each of them took a very long time indeed to lay down, but exactly how long he has no notion. If you say to him, 'Is it a million years since the chalk was deposited?' he will answer, like the old lady of Prague, whose ideas were excessively vague, 'Perhaps.' If you suggest five millions, he will answer oracularly once more, 'Perhaps'; and if you go on to twenty millions, 'Perhaps,' with a broad smile, is still the only confession56 of faith that torture will wring57 out of him. But in the matter of the Glacial Epoch, a comparatively late and almost historical event, geologists58 have broken through their usual reserve on this chronological59 question and condescended60 to give us a numerical determination. And here is how Dr. Croll gets at it.
Every now and again, geological evidence goes to show us, a long cold spell occurs in the northern or southern hemisphere. During these long cold spells the ice cap at the poles increases largely, till it spreads over a great part of what are now the temperate61 regions of the globe, and makes ice a mere62 drug in the market as far south as Covent Garden or the Halles at Paris. During the greatest extension of this ice sheet in the last glacial epoch, in fact, all England except a small south-western corner (about Torquay and Bournemouth) was completely covered by one enormous mass of glaciers63, as is still the case with almost the whole of Greenland. The ice sheet, grinding slowly over the hills and rocks, smoothed and polished and striated64 their surfaces in many places till they resembled the roches moutonnées similarly ground down in our own day by the moving ice rivers of Chamouni and Grindelwald. Now, since these great glaciations have occurred at various intervals in the world's past history, they must depend upon some frequently recurring65 cause. Such a cause, therefore, Dr. Croll began ingeniously to hunt about for.
He found it at last in the eccentricity66 of the earth's orbit. This world of ours, though usually steady enough in its movements, is at times decidedly eccentric. Not that I mean to impute67 to our old and exceedingly respectable planet any occasional aberrations68 of intellect, or still less of morals (such as might be expected from Mars and Venus); the word is here to be accepted strictly69 in its scientific or Pickwickian sense as implying merely an irregularity of movement, a slight wobbling out of the established path, a deviation70 from exact circularity. Owing to a combination of astronomical71 revolutions, the precession of the equinoxes and the motion of the aphelion72 (I am not going to explain them here; the names alone will be quite sufficient for most people; they will take the rest on trust)—owing to the combination of these profoundly interesting causes, I say, there occur certain periods in the world's life when for a very long time together (10,500 years, to be quite precise) the northern hemisphere is warmer than the southern, or vice73 versa. Now, Dr. Croll has calculated that about 250,000 years ago this eccentricity of the earth's orbit was at its highest, so that a cycle of recurring cold and warm epochs in either hemisphere alternately then set in; and such cold spells it was that produced the Great Ice Age in Northern Europe. They went on till about 80,000 years ago, when they stopped short for the present, leaving the climate of Britain and the neighbouring continent with its existing inconvenient74 Laodicean temperature. And, as there are good reasons for believing that my old master and his contemporaries lived just before the greatest cold of the Glacial Epoch, and that his immediate75 descendants, with the animals on which they feasted, were driven out of Europe, or out of existence, by the slow approach of the enormous ice sheet, we may, I think, fairly conclude that his date was somewhere about B.C. 248,000. In any case we must at least admit, with Mr. Andrew Lang, the laureate of the twenty-five thousandth century, that
He lived in the long long agoes; 'Twas the manner of primitive76 man.
The old master, then, carved his bas-relief in pre-Glacial Europe, just at the moment before the temporary extinction77 of his race in France by the coming on of the Great Ice Age. We can infer this fact from the character of the fauna78 by which he was surrounded, a fauna in which species of cold and warm climates are at times quite capriciously intermingled. We get the reindeer and the mammoth79 side by side with the hippopotamus80 and the hyena81; we find the chilly82 cave bear and the Norway lemming, the musk83 sheep and the Arctic fox in the same deposits with the lion and the lynx, the leopard84 and the rhinoceros85. The fact is, as Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace has pointed86 out, we live to-day in a zoologically impoverished87 world, from which all the largest, fiercest, and most remarkable88 animals have lately been weeded out. And it was in all probability the coming on of the Ice Age that did the weeding. Our Zoo can boast no mammoth and no mastodon. The sabre-toothed lion has gone the way of all flesh; the deinotherium and the colossal89 ruminants of the Pliocene Age no longer browse beside the banks of Seine. But our old master saw the last of some at least among those gigantic quadrupeds; it was his hand or that of one among his fellows that scratched the famous mammoth etching on the ivory of La Madelaine and carved the figure of the extinct cave bear on the reindeer-horn ornaments90 of Laugerie Basse. Probably, therefore, he lived in the period immediately preceding the Great Ice Age, or else perhaps in one of the warm interglacial spells with which the long secular92 winter of the northern hemisphere was then from time to time agreeably diversified93.
And what did the old master himself look like? Well, painters have always been fond of reproducing their own lineaments. Have we not the familiar young Raffael, painted by himself, and the Rembrandt, and the Titian, and the Rubens, and a hundred other self-drawn94 portraits, all flattering and all famous? Even so primitive man has drawn himself many times over, not indeed on this particular piece of reindeer horn, but on several other media to be seen elsewhere, in the original or in good copies. One of the best portraits is that discovered in the old cave at Laugerie Basse by M. Elie Massénat, where a very early pre-Glacial man is represented in the act of hunting an aurochs, at which he is casting a flint-tipped javelin95. In this, as in all other pictures of the same epoch, I regret to say that the ancient hunter is represented in the costume of Adam before the fall. Our old master's studies, in fact, are all in the nude96. Primitive man was evidently unacquainted as yet with the use of clothing, though primitive woman, while still unclad, had already learnt how to heighten her natural charms by the simple addition of a necklace and bracelets97. Indeed, though dresses were still wholly unknown, rouge98 was even then extremely fashionable among French ladies, and lumps of the ruddle with which primitive woman made herself beautiful for ever are now to be discovered in the corner of the cave where she had her little prehistoric boudoir. To return to our hunter, however, who for aught we know to the contrary may be our old master himself in person, he is a rather crouching99 and semi-erect100 savage101, with an arched back, recalling somewhat that of the gorilla102, a round head, long neck, pointed beard, and weak, shambling, ill-developed legs. I fear we must admit that pre-Glacial man cut, on the whole, a very sorry and awkward figure.
Was he black? That we don't certainly know, but all analogy would lead one to answer positively103, Yes. White men seem, on the whole, to be a very recent and novel improvement on the original evolutionary104 pattern. At any rate he was distinctly hairy, like the Ainos, or aborigines of Japan, in our own day, of whom Miss Isabella Bird has drawn so startling and sensational105 a picture. Several of the pre-Glacial sketches106 show us lank107 and gawky savages108 with the body covered with long scratches, answering exactly to the scratches which represent the hanging hair of the mammoth, and suggesting that man then still retained his old original hairy covering. The few skulls109 and other fragments of skeletons now preserved to us also indicate that our old master and his contemporaries much resembled in shape and build the Australian black fellows, though their foreheads were lower and more receding91, while their front teeth still projected in huge fangs110, faintly recalling the immense canines111 of the male gorilla. Quite apart from any theoretical considerations as to our probable descent (or ascent) from Mr. Darwin's hypothetical 'hairy arboreal112 quadrumanous ancestor,' whose existence may or may not be really true, there can be no doubt that the actual historical remains113 set before us pre-Glacial man as evidently approaching in several important respects the higher monkeys.
It is interesting to note too that while the Men of the Time still retained (to be frankly114 evolutionary) many traces of the old monkey-like progenitor115, the horses which our old master has so cleverly delineated for us on his scrap116 of horn similarly retained many traces of the earlier united horse-and-donkey ancestor. Professor Huxley has admirably reconstructed for us the pedigree of the horse, beginning with a little creature from the Eocene beds of New Mexico, with five toes to each hind foot, and ending with the modern horse, whose hoof117 is now practically reduced to a single and solid-nailed toe. Intermediate stages show us an Upper Eocene animal as big as a fox, with four toes on his front feet and three behind; a Miocene kind as big as a sheep, with only three toes on the front foot, the two outer of which are smaller than the big middle one; and finally a Pliocene form, as big as a donkey, with one stout middle toe, the real hoof, flanked by two smaller ones, too short by far to reach the ground. In our own horse these lateral118 toes have become reduced to what are known by veterinaries as splint bones, combined with the canon in a single solidly morticed piece. But in the pre-Glacial horses the splint bones still generally remained quite distinct, thus pointing back to the still earlier period when they existed as two separate and independent side toes in the ancestral quadruped. In a few cave specimens119, however, the splints are found united with the canons in a single piece, while conversely horses are sometimes, though very rarely, born at the present day with three-toed feet, exactly resembling those of their half-forgotten ancestor, the Pliocene hipparion.
The reason why we know so much about the horses of the cave period is, I am bound to admit, simply and solely121 because the man of the period ate them. Hippophagy has always been popular in France; it was practised by pre-Glacial man in the caves of Périgord, and revived with immense enthusiasm by the gourmets122 of the Boulevards after the siege of Paris and the hunger of the Commune. The cave men hunted and killed the wild horse of their own times, and one of the best of their remaining works of art represents a naked hunter attacking two horses, while a huge snake winds itself unperceived behind close to his heel. In this rough prehistoric sketch46 one seems to catch some faint antique foreshadowing of the rude humour of the 'Petit Journal pour Rire.' Some arch?ologists even believe that the horse was domesticated123 by the cave men as a source of food, and argue that the familiarity with its form shown in the drawings could only have been acquired by people who knew the animal in its domesticated state; they declare that the cave man was obviously horsey. But all the indications seem to me to show that tame animals were quite unknown in the age of the cave men. The mammoth certainly was never domesticated; yet there is a famous sketch of the huge beast upon a piece of his own ivory, discovered in the cave of La Madelaine by Messrs. Lartet and Christy, and engraved124 a hundred times in works on arch?ology, which forms one of the finest existing relics125 of pre-Glacial art. In another sketch, less well known, but not unworthy of admiration126, the early artist has given us with a few rapid but admirable strokes his own reminiscence of the effect produced upon him by the sudden onslaught of the hairy brute28, tusks127 erect and mouth wide open, a perfect glimpse of elephantine fury. It forms a capital example of early impressionism, respectfully recommended to the favourable23 attention of Mr. J.M. Whistler.
The reindeer, however, formed the favourite food and favourite model of the pre-Glacial artists. Perhaps it was a better sitter than the mammoth; certainly it is much more frequently represented on these early prehistoric bas-reliefs. The high-water mark of pal2?olithic art is undoubtedly to be found in the reindeer of the cave of Thayngen, in Switzerland, a capital and spirited representation of a buck128 grazing, in which the perspective of the two horns is better managed than a Chinese artist would manage it at the present day. Another drawing of two reindeer fighting, scratched on a fragment of schistose rock and unearthed129 in one of the caves of Périgord, though far inferior to the Swiss specimen120 in spirit and execution, is yet not without real merit. The perspective, however, displays one marked infantile trait, for the head and legs of one deer are seen distinctly through the body of another. Cave bears, fish, musk sheep, foxes, and many other extinct or existing animals are also found among the archaic sculptures. Probably all these creatures were used as food; and it is even doubtful whether the artistic130 troglodytes131 were not also confirmed cannibals. To quote Mr. Andrew Lang once more on primitive man, 'he lived in a cave by the seas; he lived upon oysters132 and foes133.' The oysters are quite undoubted, and the foes may be inferred with considerable certainty.
I have spoken of our old master more than once under this rather question-begging style and title of primitive man. In reality, however, the very facts which I have here been detailing serve themselves to show how extremely far our hero was from being truly primitive. You can't speak of a distinguished134 artist, who draws the portraits of extinct animals with grace and accuracy, as in any proper sense primordial135. Grant that our good troglodytes were indeed light-hearted cannibals; nevertheless they could design far better than the modern Esquimaux or Polynesians, and carve far better than the civilised being who is now calmly discoursing136 about their personal peculiarities137 in his own study. Between the cave men of the pre-Glacial age and the hypothetical hairy quadrumanous ancestor aforesaid there must have intervened innumerable generations of gradually improving intermediate forms. The old master, when he first makes his bow to us, naked and not ashamed, in his Swiss or French grotto138, flint scalpel in hand and necklet of bear's teeth dropping loosely on his hairy bosom139, is nevertheless in all essentials a completely evolved human being, with a whole past of slowly acquired culture lying dimly and mysteriously behind him. Already he had invented the bow with its flint-tipped arrow, the neatly140 chipped javelin-head, the bone harpoon141, the barbed fish-hook, the axe142, the lance, the dagger143, and the needle. Already he had learnt how to decorate his implements144 with artistic skill, and to carve the handles of his knives with the figures of animals. I have no doubt that he even knew how to brew146 and to distil147; and he was probably acquainted with the noble art of cookery as applied148 to the persons of his human fellow creatures. Such a personage cannot reasonably be called primitive; cannibalism149, as somebody has rightly remarked, is the first step on the road to civilisation150.
No, if we want to get at genuine, unadulterated primitive man we must go much further back in time than the mere trifle of 250,000 years with which Dr. Croll and the cosmic astronomers151 so generously provide us for pre-Glacial humanity. We must turn away to the immeasurably earlier fire-split flints which the Abbé Bourgeois—undaunted mortal!—ventured to discover among the Miocene strata152 of the calcaire de Beauce. Those flints, if of human origin at all, were fashioned by some naked and still more hairy creature who might fairly claim to be considered as genuinely primitive. So rude are they that, though evidently artificial, one distinguished arch?ologist will not admit they can be in any way human; he will have it that they were really the handiwork of the great European anthropoid153 ape of that early period. This, however, is nothing more than very delicate hair-splitting; for what does it matter whether you call the animal that fashioned these exceedingly rough and fire-marked implements a man-like ape or an ape-like human being? The fact remains quite unaltered, whichever name you choose to give to it. When you have got to a monkey who can light a fire and proceed to manufacture himself a convenient implement145, you may be sure that man, noble man, with all his glorious and admirable faculties—cannibal or otherwise—is lurking154 somewhere very close just round the corner. The more we examine the work of our old master, in fact, the more does the conviction force itself upon us that he was very far indeed from being primitive—that we must push back the early history of our race not for 250,000 winters alone, but perhaps for two or three million years into the dim past of Tertiary ages.
But if pre-Glacial man is thus separated from the origin of the race by a very long interval52 indeed, it is none the less true that he is separated from our own time by the intervention155 of a vast blank space, the space occupied by the coming on and passing away of the Glacial Epoch. A great gap cuts him off from what we may consider as the relatively156 modern age of the mound-builders, whose grassy157 barrows still cap the summits of our southern chalk downs. When the great ice sheet drove away pal?olithic man—the man of the caves and the unwrought flint axes—from Northern Europe, he was still nothing more than a naked savage in the hunting stage, divinely gifted for art, indeed, but armed only with roughly chipped stone implements, and wholly ignorant of taming animals or of the very rudiments158 of agriculture. He knew nothing of the use of metals—aurum irrepertum spernere fortior—and he had not even learnt how to grind and polish his rude stone tomahawks to a finished edge. He couldn't make himself a bowl of sun-baked pottery159, and, if he had discovered the almost universal art of manufacturing an intoxicating160 liquor from grain or berries (for, as Byron, with too great anthropological161 truth, justly remarks, 'man, being reasonable, must get drunk'), he at least drank his aboriginal162 beer or toddy from the capacious horn of a slaughtered163 aurochs. That was the kind of human being who alone inhabited France and England during the later pre-Glacial period.
A hundred and seventy thousand years elapse (as the play-bills put it), and then the curtain rises afresh upon neolithic164 Europe. Man meanwhile, loitering somewhere behind the scenes in Asia or Africa (as yet imperfectly explored from this point of view), had acquired the important arts of sharpening his tomahawks and producing hand-made pottery for his kitchen utensils165. When the great ice sheet cleared away he followed the returning summer into Northern Europe, another man, physically167, intellectually, and morally, with all the slow accumulations of nearly two thousand centuries (how easily one writes the words! how hard to realise them!) upon his maturer shoulders. Then comes the age of what older antiquaries used to regard as primitive antiquity—the age of the English barrows, of the Danish kitchen middens, of the Swiss lake dwellings168. The men who lived in it had domesticated the dog, the cow, the sheep, the goat, and the invaluable169 pig; they had begun to sow small ancestral wheat and undeveloped barley170; they had learnt to weave flax and wear decent clothing: in a word, they had passed from the savage hunting condition to the stage of barbaric herdsmen and agriculturists. That is a comparatively modern period, and yet I suppose we must conclude with Dr. James Geikie that it isn't to be measured by mere calculations of ten or twenty centuries, but of ten or twenty thousand years. The perspective of the past is opening up rapidly before us; what looked quite close yesterday is shown to-day to lie away off somewhere in the dim distance. Like our paleolithic artists, we fail to get the reindeer fairly behind the ox in the foreground, as we ought to do if we saw the whole scene properly foreshortened.
On the table where I write there lie two paper-weights, preserving from the fate of the sibylline171 leaves the sheets of foolscap to which this essay is now being committed. One of them is a very rude flint hatchet172, produced by merely chipping off flakes173 from its side by dexterous174 blows, and utterly175 unpolished or unground in any way. It belongs to the age of the very old master (or possibly even to a slightly earlier epoch), and it was sent me from Ightham, in Kent, by that indefatigable176 unearther of prehistoric memorials, Mr. Benjamin Harrison. That flint, which now serves me in the office of a paper-weight, is far ruder, simpler, and more ineffective than any weapon or implement at present in use among the lowest savages. Yet with it, I doubt not, some naked black fellow by the banks of the Thames has hunted the mammoth among unbroken forest two hundred thousand years ago and more; with it he has faced the angry cave bear and the original and only genuine British lion (for everybody knows that the existing mongrel heraldic beast is nothing better than a bastard177 modification178 of the leopard of the Plantagenets). Nay179, I have very little doubt in my own mind that with it some ?sthetic ancestor has brained and cut up for his use his next-door neighbour in the nearest cavern180, and then carved upon his well-picked bones an interesting sketch of the entire performance. The Du Mauriers of that remote age, in fact, habitually181 drew their society pictures upon the personal remains of the mammoth or the man whom they wished to caricature in deathless bone-cuts. The other paper-weight is a polished neolithic tomahawk, belonging to the period of the mound-builders, who succeeded the Glacial Epoch, and it measures the distance between the two levels of civilisation with great accuracy. It is the military weapon of a trained barbaric warrior182 as opposed to the universal implement and utensil166 of a rude, solitary183, savage hunter. Yet how curious it is that even in the midst of this 'so-called nineteenth century,' which perpetually proclaims itself an age of progress, men should still prefer to believe themselves inferior to their original ancestors, instead of being superior to them! The idea that man has risen is considered base, degrading, and positively wicked; the idea that he has fallen is considered to be immensely inspiring, ennobling, and beautiful. For myself, I have somehow always preferred the boast of the Homeric Glaucus that we indeed maintain ourselves to be much better men than ever were our fathers.
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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intaglio
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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alabaster
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rime
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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authentic
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abode
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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succinctly
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| adv.简洁地；简洁地，简便地 | |
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reindeer
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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25
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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26
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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29
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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30
browse
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| vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草 | |
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31
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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32
intrepidly
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| adv.无畏地，勇猛地 | |
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33
factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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34
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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35
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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36
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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37
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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38
mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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39
attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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40
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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41
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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42
mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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44
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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45
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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47
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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48
authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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49
epics
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| n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍） | |
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50
flake
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| v.使成薄片；雪片般落下；n.薄片 | |
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51
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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52
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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53
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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54
geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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55
chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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56
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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57
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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58
geologists
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| 地质学家，地质学者( geologist的名词复数 ) | |
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59
chronological
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| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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60
condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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61
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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62
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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63
glaciers
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| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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64
striated
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| adj.有纵线，条纹的 | |
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65
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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66
eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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67
impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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68
aberrations
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| n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 )；差错；脱离常规；心理失常 | |
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69
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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70
deviation
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| n.背离，偏离；偏差，偏向；离题 | |
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71
astronomical
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| adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的 | |
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72
aphelion
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| n.远日点；远核点 | |
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73
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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74
inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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75
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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76
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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77
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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78
fauna
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| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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79
mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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80
hippopotamus
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| n.河马 | |
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81
hyena
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| n.土狼，鬣狗 | |
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82
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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83
musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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84
leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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85
rhinoceros
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| n.犀牛 | |
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86
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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87
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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88
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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89
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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90
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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92
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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93
diversified
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| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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94
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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95
javelin
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| n.标枪，投枪 | |
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96
nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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97
bracelets
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| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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98
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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99
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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100
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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101
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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102
gorilla
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| n.大猩猩，暴徒，打手 | |
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103
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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104
evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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105
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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106
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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107
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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108
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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109
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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110
fangs
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| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
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111
canines
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| n.犬齿( canine的名词复数 )；犬牙；犬科动物 | |
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112
arboreal
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| adj.树栖的；树的 | |
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113
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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114
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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115
progenitor
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| n.祖先，先驱 | |
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116
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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117
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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118
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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119
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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120
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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121
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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122
gourmets
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| 讲究吃喝的人，美食家( gourmet的名词复数 ) | |
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123
domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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124
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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125
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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126
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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127
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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128
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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129
unearthed
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| 出土的（考古） | |
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130
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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131
troglodytes
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| n.类人猿( troglodyte的名词复数 )；隐居者；穴居者；极端保守主义者 | |
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132
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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133
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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134
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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135
primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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136
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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137
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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138
grotto
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| n.洞穴 | |
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139
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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140
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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141
harpoon
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| n.鱼叉；vt.用鱼叉叉，用鱼叉捕获 | |
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142
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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143
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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144
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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145
implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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146
brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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147
distil
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| vt.蒸馏；提取…的精华，精选出 | |
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148
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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149
cannibalism
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| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
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150
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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151
astronomers
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| n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 ) | |
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152
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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153
anthropoid
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| adj.像人类的，类人猿的；n.类人猿；像猿的人 | |
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154
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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155
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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156
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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157
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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158
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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159
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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160
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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161
anthropological
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| adj.人类学的 | |
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162
aboriginal
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| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
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163
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
neolithic
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| adj.新石器时代的 | |
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165
utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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166
utensil
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| n.器皿，用具 | |
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167
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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168
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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169
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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170
barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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171
sibylline
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| adj.预言的；神巫的 | |
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172
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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173
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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174
dexterous
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| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
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175
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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176
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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177
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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178
modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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179
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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180
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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181
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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182
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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183
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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