在備考雅思閱讀的部分中難免會遇到不懂的句子或單詞，為了幫助大家更好的了解雅思閱讀文章的意思，上海培訓(xùn)機構(gòu)學校的老師給考生們帶了雅思劍4Test4passage2閱讀原文譯文-THE NATURE AND AIMS OF ARCHAEOLOGY，希望可以幫助廣大雅思考生輕松備考雅思。

  雅思劍4Test4閱讀譯文Passage2-考古學的本質(zhì)和目的

  THE NATURE AND AIMS OF ARCHAEOLOGY

  考古學的本質(zhì)和目的

  Archaeology is partly the discovery of the treasures of the past, partly the careful work of the scientific analyst, partly the exercise of the creative imagination. It is toiling in the sun on an excavation in the Middle East, it is working with living Inuit in the snows of Alaska, and it is investigating the sewers of Roman Britain. But it is also the painstaking task of interpretation, so that we come to understand what these things mean for the human story. And it is the conservation of the world’s cultural heritage against looting and careless harm.

  考古學部分是對過去財富的發(fā)現(xiàn)，部分是科學分析的嚴謹工作，部分是創(chuàng)造性想像的練習。同時也是在陽光下辛苦地在中東挖掘，在雪中的阿拉斯加和因紐特人一起工作，研究羅馬大不列顛的下水道。但是它也是辛苦解釋工作，以使我們理解在人類歷史中這些東西代表了什么。它保持了世界文化遺產(chǎn)，使之免受掠奪和疏忽的傷害。

  Archaeology, then, is both a physical activity out in the field, and an intellectual pursuit in the study or laboratory. That is part of its great attraction. The rich mixture of danger and detective work has also made it the perfect vehicle for fiction writers and film-makers, from Agatha Christie with Murder in Mesopotamia to Stephen Spielberg with Indiana Jones. However far from reality such portrayals are, they capture the essential truth that archaeology is an exciting quest — the quest for knowledge about ourselves and our past.

  考古學既是一個在田野的體力活動，也是在書房或?qū)嶒炇业闹橇ψ非蟆＿@正是它的巨大吸引力的一部分。這種充滿了危險和偵探性質(zhì)的工作的混合體是小說作家和電影導(dǎo)演的完美載體，從阿加莎?克里斯蒂的《東方快車謀殺案》到斯蒂芬?斯皮爾伯格的《奪寶奇兵》。雖然這些描述和現(xiàn)實差距甚遠，但是它們抓住了最本質(zhì)的事實：考古學是一個令人激動的探詢，一個對關(guān)于我們自身和過去知識的探詢。

  But how does archaeology relate to disciplines such as anthropology and history, that are also concerned with the human story? Is archaeology itself a science? And what are the responsibilities of the archaeologist in today’s world?

  但是考古學是怎樣和諸如人類學和歷史學這樣的學科相聯(lián)系呢，這些學科也同樣研究人類歷史?考古學本身是一門科學嗎?考古學家在今天低界中的責任是什么?

  Anthropology, at its broadest, is the study of humanity — our physical characteristics as animals and our unique non-biological characteristics that we call culture. Culture in this sense includes what the anthropologist, Edward Tylor, summarised in 1871 as ‘knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Anthropologists also use the term ‘culture’ in a more restricted sense when they refer to the ‘culture’ of a particular society, meaning the non-biological characteristics unique to that society, which distinguish it from other societies. Anthropology is thus a broad discipline — so broad that it is generally broken down into three smaller disciplines: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and archaeology.

  最廣義的人類學是研究人類的科學，包括我們作為動物的身體特征以及被我們稱為文化的人類特有的非生物特征。在這種意義上的文化包括了人類學家愛德華?泰勒在1871年總結(jié)的“作為社會成員的個體所習得的包括知識、信仰、藝術(shù)，道德、習俗以及其他一切能力和習慣。”而當人類學家談到某個特定社會的文化時，這個文化就是狹義的概念，指這個社會的獨特的非生物特征，這一特征使該社會區(qū)別于其他社會。人類學是一個非常寬泛的學科，通常分為三個更小的學科：體質(zhì)人類學、文化人類學和考古學。

  Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology as it is also called, concerns the study of human biological or physical characteristics and how they evolved. Cultural anthropology — or social anthropology — analyses human culture and society. Two of its branches are ethnography (the study at first hand of individual living cultures) and ethnology (which sets out to compare cultures using ethnographic evidence to derive general principles about human society).

  體質(zhì)人類學或者生物人類學，正如其名字一樣，關(guān)注于人類生物或體質(zhì)特征的研究以及這些特征是怎樣發(fā)展的。文化人類學或者社會人類學分析人類文化和社會。它的兩個分支是人種志(對單個活文化的第一手研究)和民族學(從人種出發(fā)，比較各不同文化，得出關(guān)于人類社會的通用法則)。

  Archaeology is the ‘past tense of cultural anthropology’. Whereas cultural anthropologists will often base their conclusions on the experience of living within contemporary communities, archaeologists study past societies primarily through their material remains — the buildings, tools, and other artefacts that constitute what is known as the material culture left over from former societies.

  考古學是“文化人類學的過去時”。文化人類學家經(jīng)常把他們的結(jié)論建立在目前社區(qū)的生活經(jīng)歷上，然而考古學家主要通過殘存的物質(zhì)研究過去社會——建筑、工具和其他人工制品，這些構(gòu)成了過去社會留下來的物質(zhì)文化。

  Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks for the archaeologist today is to know how to interpret material culture in human terms. How were those pots used? Why are some dwellings round and others square? Here the methods of archaeology and ethnography overlap. Archaeologists in recent decades have developed ‘ethnoarchaeology’, where, like ethnographers, they live among contemporary communities, but with the specific purpose of learning how such societies use material culture — how they make their tools and weapons, why they build their settlements where they do, and so on. Moreover, archaeology has an active role to play in the field of conservation. Heritage studies constitutes a developing field, where it is realised that the world’s cultural heritage is a diminishing resource which holds different meanings for different people.

  然而，今天的考古學家最重要的任務(wù)之一就是知道如何解讀從前的物質(zhì)文化。那些罐子是怎么用的?為什么有些住所是圓形的，而有些是方形的?在這里，考古學和人種學的方法重合了。幾十年來，考古學家延伸出了種族文化考古學，和人種學者一樣，他們住在當代的社區(qū)中，但是他們帶著特定的目的，就是要了解社會是如何使用物質(zhì)文化的，比如人們是怎樣制造工具和武器，人們?yōu)槭裁匆诂F(xiàn)在的地方建立住所，等等。而且，考古學在保護遺址方面起了積極的作用。傳統(tǒng)研究構(gòu)成了一個不斷發(fā)展的領(lǐng)域，在這個領(lǐng)域里，人們認識到世界的文化遺產(chǎn)是一個正在減少的資源，這一資源對不同的人們有著不同的意義。

  If, then, archaeology deals with the past, in what way does it differ from history? In the broadest sense, just as archaeology is an aspect of anthropology, so too is it a part of history — where we mean the whole history of humankind from its beginnings over three million years ago. Indeed, for more than ninety-nine per cent of that huge span of time, archaeology — the study of past material culture — is the only significant source of information. Conventional historical sources begin only with the introduction of written records around 3,000 BC in western Asia, and much later in most other parts of the world.

  如果考古學只研究過去，那么它有什么是區(qū)別于歷史學的呢?就最廣義的意義而言，考古學是人類學的一個方面，同時也是歷史學的一部分，在這里的歷史是指3百萬年前人類產(chǎn)生以來的所有人類歷史。實際上，在那段漫長的歲月里，超過99%的時間，考古學這一研究過去的物質(zhì)文化的學科是惟一有意義的信息資源。傳統(tǒng)的歷史始于公元前3000左右西亞的文字記載，而世界的其他大多數(shù)地區(qū)的歷史要比這晚很多。

  A commonly drawn distinction is between pre-history, i.e. the period before written records — and history in the narrow sense, meaning the study of the past using written evidence. To archaeology, which studies all cultures and periods, whether with or without writing, the distinction between history and pre-history is a convenient dividing line that recognises the importance of the written word, but in no way lessens the importance of the useful information contained in oral histories.

  人們一般是這樣把人類的歷史一分為二的：史前(即文字記錄出現(xiàn)以前的時期)和狹義的歷史即有文字見證的這段歷史。對于研究所有文化和所有時期的考古學而言，不管有沒有文字，歷史和史前的區(qū)別只是承認文字重要性的傳統(tǒng)分界線，絕不會減少包含在口述史中有用信息的重要性。

  Since the aim of archaeology is the understanding of humankind, it is a humanistic study, and since it deals with the human past, it is a historical discipline. But it differs from the study of written history in a fundamental way. The material the archaeologist finds does not tell us directly what to think. Historical records make statements, offer opinions and pass judgements. The objects the archaeologists discover, on the other hand, tell us nothing directly in themselves. In this respect, the practice of the archaeologist is rather like that of the scientist, who collects data, conducts experiments, formulates a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis against more data, and then, in conclusion, devises a model that seems best to summarise the pattern observed in the data. The archaeologist has to develop a picture of the past, just as the scientist has to develop a coherent view of the natural world.

  由于考古學的目的是理解人類，所以它是一個人文主義的學科。而且，由于考古學研究的是人類的過去，所以它是一個有關(guān)歷史的學科，但是它在根本上區(qū)別于文字歷史的研究?？脊艑W家發(fā)現(xiàn)的物質(zhì)不會直接告訴我們?nèi)ニ伎际裁础v史記載是一種聲明，意見及評判。在另一方面，考古學家發(fā)現(xiàn)的物體本身并未直接吿訴我們什么。從這個角度來說，考古學家的實踐更像科學家的實踐?？茖W家收集數(shù)據(jù)，進行實驗，提出假設(shè)，用更多的數(shù)據(jù)驗證假設(shè)，然后得出結(jié)論，設(shè)計模型，而這一模型看起來最適合總結(jié)在數(shù)據(jù)中觀察到的模式。而考古學家需要描畫出關(guān)于過去的一幅圖畫，正如科學家需要建立一個關(guān)于自然世界的連貫的思維框架。

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