雅思阅读 7: Humans in the Rainforest（雨林中的人类）

改编自 Max Planck Institute / Nature（2025-2026）。雅思阅读 Section 3 难度，约 1050 词。 素材来源：https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260519003311.htm

Reading Passage

A. For decades, a comfortable consensus dominated African prehistory: early Homo sapiens evolved in the open savannahs of eastern and southern Africa, and only much later ventured into dense tropical forests, which were long regarded as forbidding, low-productivity environments unsuited to human survival. That picture has now been upended by a discovery in Côte d'Ivoire. An international team led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology has found stone tools buried beneath what is now dense rainforest, dated to approximately 150,000 years ago — more than twice the previous oldest evidence of human habitation in an African rainforest, and older even than the previous global record from Southeast Asia by a factor of more than two. The reassurance drawn from that consensus was never entirely comfortable. If our species had truly arisen only on open grassland, then its later spread into deserts, mountains, islands and, eventually, the Arctic had to be explained as a sequence of daring late innovations. The Côte d'Ivoire find instead suggests that tropical forests were part of Homo sapiens's original repertoire, inhabited early, routinely, and long before anything resembling a settled village appeared anywhere.

B. The story began in the 1980s, when a joint Ivorian-Soviet expedition led by Professor Yodé Guédé excavated a site known as Bété I and found layers of stone tools deep underground. At the time, neither the age of the tools nor the environment in which they had been used could be determined with confidence. Four decades later, Dr. James Blinkhorn of the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute relocated the original trench and re-excavated it using modern techniques unavailable to the original team. The timing proved critical: mining activity has since destroyed the site, making the recovered data irreplaceable. The original trench, first dug forty years earlier, was relocated using the hand-drawn maps that Guédé's team had filed away in a regional archive. Much of the surface between the old trenches had by then been cleared for bauxite extraction, and the researchers worked against a deadline, knowing that any layer they did not sample in 2025 would be gone within months. It is an unusually poignant example of how quickly archaeological evidence can vanish once its value is belatedly recognised.

C. To establish the age of occupation, the researchers employed two independent dating methods — Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Electron-Spin Resonance — both of which converged on an age of roughly 150,000 years. To confirm that the site was genuinely a rainforest rather than a grassland with scattered trees, they analysed pollen, phytoliths (microscopic silica structures left by decaying plants) and chemical traces preserved in the sediments. The samples contained pollen and plant waxes characteristic of humid West African rainforests, while grass pollen was present only at very low levels. The evidence pointed unambiguously to dense woodland surrounding the site at the time human beings were present. Before this discovery, the oldest secure evidence of human habitation in an African rainforest dated to only about 18,000 years ago; the global record had stood at roughly 70,000 years, from Southeast Asia. Optically Stimulated Luminescence estimates the time elapsed since mineral grains in sediment were last exposed to sunlight; Electron-Spin Resonance, applied to associated teeth, measures the absorption of natural radiation since burial. Convergence between the two methods is what makes the 150,000-year figure robust, since neither technique depends on the other's assumptions. The pollen analysis, meanwhile, was cross-checked against references from modern West African forests, so that the identification of tree genera did not rest on guesswork.

D. The implications extend beyond a simple revision of dates. The discovery supports a growing body of evidence that early humans were ecological generalists rather than savannah specialists, capable of thriving in deserts, coastlines, mountains and dense forests alike. This flexibility, researchers increasingly believe, may have been the key to Homo sapiens' successful spread across the globe while other hominin lineages — including Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis — disappeared. The Côte d'Ivoire find also raises a methodological warning: fossils rarely survive in hot, humid tropical soils, and dense vegetation impedes survey work. Because the African rainforest has been so poorly explored, many scientists suspect that far older sites remain buried beneath its canopy, waiting to be found. That suspicion is reinforced by the region's geology. Tropical soils leach bones within a few thousand years, so archaeologists cannot expect the skeletons that preserve so well in East African caves to survive in West Africa's humid ground. What does survive is chipped stone, which is why the tools rather than human remains carry the argument. The corollary is that the absence of older body fossils should no longer be read as evidence of an absence of people.

E. A further question, less often asked, concerns the reverse impact: if humans were living in tropical forests 150,000 years ago, how long have they been shaping those forests themselves? The researchers are now exploring whether ancient populations modified rainforest ecosystems through hunting, fire use and the management of useful plant species — raising the possibility that the "pristine" rainforests of West Africa may have been humanised landscapes far earlier than anyone assumed. Professor Eleanor Scerri, the study's senior author, notes that "convergent evidence shows beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our species," reflecting a complex history of population subdivision in which different groups occupied different habitats. Several additional sites in the region remain largely unsurveyed. The 150,000-year-old occupation at Bété I may prove to be not the endpoint of a story but its opening chapter. The implications for modern conservation are not trivial. If West African rainforests are in part the product of very long human inhabitation, then the case for preserving them as untouched wildernesses, entirely untrammelled by people, rests on a factual error. The forests worth conserving, the study suggests, are co-constructed landscapes, and the human inhabitants who shaped them deserve a place in the conservation narrative rather than being cast as later intruders. Further trenches, already scheduled for the coming field season, should clarify how intensively those early inhabitants managed the forest around them.

Questions 1-4

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, D and E from the list of headings below.

List of Headings i. Why rainforest archaeology is methodologically difficult ii. How the site was originally discovered and revisited iii. Measuring the age and confirming the ancient environment iv. The commercial value of West African timber v. What the find says about human adaptability vi. Whether ancient humans altered the forests themselves vii. Why mining companies opposed the excavation

1. Paragraph B: ____
2. Paragraph C: ____
3. Paragraph D: ____
4. Paragraph E: ____

Questions 5-8

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

5. How does the new date compare to previous records? A. It is roughly the same age as the Southeast Asian record. B. It more than doubles the previous African rainforest record. C. It is about 18,000 years older than the previous record. D. It confirms that humans first entered rainforests 70,000 years ago.

6. What evidence confirmed that the ancient environment was dense rainforest? A. The presence of stone tools shaped from hardwood. B. Fossil bones of rainforest animals found at the site. C. Pollen, phytoliths and chemical traces in sediment. D. Carbon-dated wood samples from the deepest layer.

7. Why do researchers think even older rainforest sites may exist? A. The Bété I site was abandoned after only a few centuries. B. Tropical conditions preserve fossils exceptionally well. C. Much of the African rainforest has barely been surveyed. D. Genetic evidence points to an earlier origin in Asia.

8. The study suggests that early human adaptability may explain A. why Neanderthals survived in cold climates. B. the global success of Homo sapiens relative to other hominins. C. why African forests contain so few stone tools. D. the extinction of large rainforest mammals.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9. The original 1980s expedition was able to date the stone tools accurately.
10. Two independent dating methods both pointed to roughly 150,000 years ago.
11. The Bété I site is still available for further excavation.
12. The study proves that ancient humans regularly used fire to clear forests.
13. Professor Scerri believes different human populations lived in different habitats.

Questions 14-15

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

The discovery challenges the traditional view that early humans were confined to (14) __________ habitats. Instead, the evidence suggests Homo sapiens were ecological (15) __________ capable of surviving in a wide range of environments.

答案与解析

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