段落A

The Harappan Civilisation of ancient Pakistan and India flourished 5,000 years ago, but a thousand years later their cities were abandoned. The Harappan Civilisation was a sophisticated Bronze Age society who built ‘megacities’ and traded internationally in luxury craft products, and yet seemed to have left almost no depictions of themselves. But their lack of self-imagery – at a time when the Egyptians were carving and painting representations of themselves all over their temples – is only part of the mystery.

段落A

公元前5000年左右，古巴基斯坦和印度的哈拉帕文明繁荣发展，但1000年后他们的城市被废弃。哈拉帕文明是一个复杂的青铜时代社会，建造了“超级城市”并进行国际贸易，但他们几乎没有留下关于自己的描绘。然而，他们在没有自我形象的情况下 - 就在埃及人到处在他们的寺庙上雕刻和绘画自己的形象的时候 - 只是谜团的一部分。

段落B

‘There is plenty of archaeological evidence to tell us about the rise of the Harappan Civilisation, but relatively little about its fall,’ explains archaeologist Dr Cameron Petrie of the University of Cambridge. ‘As populations increased, cities were built that had great baths, craft workshops, palaces and halls laid out in distinct sectors. Houses were arranged in blocks, with wide main streets and narrow alleyways, and many had their own wells and drainage systems. It was very much a “thriving” civilisation”. Then around 2100 BC, a transformation began. Streets went uncleaned, buildings started to be abandoned, and ritual structures fell out of use. After their final demise, a millennium passed before really large-scale cities appeared once more in South Asia.

段落B

剑桥大学的考古学家卡梅伦·佩特里博士解释道：“关于哈拉帕文明的崛起，我们有许多考古证据，但对于它的衰落，我们了解得相对较少。随着人口增加，建造了拥有大型浴池、手工艺坊、宫殿和厅堂的城市，按不同区域布局。房屋排列成街区，有宽阔的主街道和狭窄的小巷，许多房屋都有自己的井和排水系统。它确实是一个“兴盛”的文明。然后在公元前2100年左右，一种转变开始了。街道不再清理，建筑物开始被废弃，仪式建筑失去了用途。在最终消亡之后，南亚再次出现大规模城市还需要过了一千年的时间。

段落C

Some have claimed that major glacier-fed rivers changed their course, dramatically affecting the water supply and agriculture; or that the cities could not cope with an increasing population, they exhausted their resource base, the trading economy broke down or they succumbed to invasion and conflict; and yet others that climate change caused an environmental change that affected food and water provision. ‘It is unlikely that there was a single cause for the decline of the civilisation. But the fact is, until now, we have had little solid evidence from the area for most of the key elements,’ said Petrie. ‘A lot of the archaeological debate has really only been well-argued speculation.’

段落C

有人声称主要由冰川供水的河流改变了流向，极大地影响了水源和农业；或者是城市无法应对人口增长，耗尽了资源基础，贸易经济崩溃，或者是被侵略和冲突所摧毁；还有人声称气候变化导致环境变化，影响到食物和水的供应。佩特里说：“文明衰落不太可能只有一个原因。但事实是，直到现在，我们在这个地区对大多数关键因素都没有坚实的证据。很多考古讨论实际上只是有争议的猜测。”

段落D

A research team led by Petrie, together with Dr Ravindanath Singh of Banaras Hindu University in India, found early in their investigations that many of the archaeological sites were not where they were supposed to be, completely altering understanding of the way that this region was inhabited in the past. When they carried out a survey of how the larger area was settled in relation to sources of water, they found inaccuracies in the published geographic locations of ancient settlements ranging from several hundred metres to many kilometres. They realised that any attempts to use the existing data were likely to be fundamentally flawed. Over the course of several seasons of fieldwork they carried out new surveys, finding an astonishing 198 settlement sites that were previously unknown.

段落D

由佩特里领导的研究团队，与印度巴纳拉斯·印度大学的拉文德·辛格博士一起，在研究早期发现，许多考古遗址并不在预期的位置上，这完全改变了对这个地区过去居住方式的理解。当他们对整个地区的水源与定居地之间的关系进行调查时，他们发现已发表的古代定居点的地理位置存在几百米到几公里的不准确之处。他们意识到任何使用现有数据的尝试都可能基本上有缺陷。在几个考古季节的调查中，他们发现了198个之前未知的定居点，这是令人惊讶的发现。

段落E

Now, research published by Dr Yama Dixit and Professor David Hodell, both from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, has provided the first definitive evidence for climate change affecting the plains of north-western India, where hundreds of Harappan sites are known to have been situated. The researchers gathered shells of Melanoides tuberculata snails from the sediments of an ancient lake and used geochemical analysis as a means of tracing the climate history of the region. ‘As today, the major source of water into the lake is likely to have been the summer monsoon,’ says Dixit. ‘But we have observed that there was an abrupt change about 4,100 years ago, when the amount of evaporation from the lake exceeded the rainfall – indicative of a drought.’ Hodell adds: ‘We estimate that the weakening of the Indian summer monsoon climate lasted about 200 years before recovering to the previous conditions, which we still see today.’

段落E

现在，剑桥大学地球科学系的Yama Dixit博士和David Hodell教授发表的研究为影响印度西北平原的气候变化提供了首个确凿证据.该研究团队从古代湖泊的沉积物中采集了Melanoides tuberculata蜗牛的贝壳，并通过地球化学分析追踪了该地区的气候历史。Dixit博士表示：“与今天一样，该湖泊的主要水源可能是夏季季风。但我们观察到大约4100年前发生了突然变化，湖泊的蒸发量超过降雨量，这表明发生了干旱。”Hodell补充道：“我们估计，印度夏季季风气候的减弱持续了大约200年，然后才恢复到之前的条件，这在今天仍然存在。”

段落F

It has long been thought that other great Bronze Age civilisations also declined at a similar time, with a global-scale climate event being seen as the cause. While it is possible that these local-scale processes were linked, the real archaeological interest lies in understanding the impact of these larger-scale events on different environments and different populations. ‘Considering the vast area of the Harappan Civilisation with its variable weather systems,’ explains Singh, ‘it is essential that we obtain more climate data from areas close to the two great cities at Mohenjodaro and Harappa and also from the Indian Punjab.’

段落F

长期以来，人们一直认为其他伟大的青铜时代文明也在同一时间衰落，全球范围内的气候事件被认为是原因。虽然这些局部规模的过程可能相互关联，但真正的考古兴趣在于了解这些大尺度事件对不同环境和不同人口的影响。辛格解释道：“考虑到哈拉帕文明所在地的广阔地区和其多变的天气系统，从靠近摩亨佐达罗和哈拉帕这两座重要城市的区域以及印度的旁遮普邦获取更多的气候数据是至关重要的。”

段落G

Petrie and Singh’s team is now examining archaeological records and trying to understand details of how people led their lives in the region five millennia ago. They are analysing grains cultivated at the time, and trying to work out whether they were grown under extreme conditions of water stress, and whether they were adjusting the combinations of crops they were growing for different weather systems. They are also looking at whether the types of pottery used, and other aspects of their material culture, were distinctive to specific regions or were more similar across larger areas. This gives us insight into the types of interactive networks that the population was involved in, and whether those changed.

段落G

佩特里和辛格的团队现正在研究考古记录，试图了解5000年前这个地区的人们是如何生活的。他们分析了当时种植的谷物，试图确定它们是否在极端水分压力条件下生长，并且他们是否调整了不同气候系统下种植的作物组合。他们还研究了使用的陶器类型和其他物质文化的方面，以确定它们是特定地区的特点还是在更大范围内更为相似。这使我们能够深入了解当时的人口所参与的互动网络类型以及是否发生了变化。

段落H

Petrie believes that archaeologists are in a unique position to investigate how past societies responded to environmental and climatic change. ‘By investigating responses to environmental pressures and threats, we can learn from the past to engage with the public, and the relevant governmental and administrative bodies, to be more proactive in issues such as the management and administration of water supply, the balance of urban and rural development, and the importance of preserving cultural heritage in the future.’

段落H

佩特里认为，考古学家在研究过去社会如何应对环境和气候变化方面具有独特的优势。他说：“通过调查对环境压力和威胁的应对，我们可以从过去中学习，与公众、相关政府和行政机构更积极地就水源管理和行政管理、城乡发展平衡以及文化遗产的保护等问题进行交流。”