美国国家公共电台 NPR Louisiana History Washes Away As Sea Levels Rise, Land Sinks

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

Louisiana is losing its coast faster than any place in the world. That's because of sea level rise, development and sinking marshland. Officials are trying to rebuild those marshes² and the wetlands, but much of the coast can't be saved. As Tegan Wendland at member station WWNO reports, Louisiana's history is an unwitting victim. As land disappears and the water creeps inland, ancient archaeology³ sites are washing away.

TEGAN WENDLAND, BYLINE⁴: Richie Blink was born and raised in Plaquemines Parish, way down south of New Orleans along the Mississippi River. Now he works for the National Wildlife Federation⁵. When he was a kid, his dad showed him a special place in Bay Adams where they'd go fishing.

RICHIE BLINK: We would come out of the floodgates and my dad would say, head for the lemon trees.

WENDLAND: What's locally known as the lemon trees is a stand of weathered old trees on a grassy⁶ tuft of land. It's a well-known landmark⁷ for fishermen, but they would rarely stop there to hunt or fish because it's a sacred Native American site.

BLINK: The legend goes that you should always bring some sort of sacrifice, so somebody left some lemons for the ancestors.

WENDLAND: And those grew into big trees with grapefruit-sized lemons. But as the land was lost to the Gulf⁸ of Mexico, saltwater made its way into the freshwater marsh¹, killing⁹ off the trees and other plants. They stand like skeletons on the edge of this scrappy, wind-beaten island. Waves beat against the dirt, washing it away, exposing shards¹¹ of ancient pottery¹². Blink hops¹³ down off his boat, pulls it up on the eroding¹⁴ bank and reaches out to pick up an unassuming brown shard¹⁰ out of the waves.

BLINK: You can see it's just everywhere, all over the place.

WENDLAND: What do you have there?

BLINK: This is earthen pottery made by natives, and this site is in the process of being destroyed. It only has a few more years left.

WENDLAND: It's an ancient Native American site and an important archaeological find, and it's one of many historic sites being forever lost to the Gulf as rising seas and saltwater intrusion eat away at Louisiana's fragile marshes. It's not just this one, two sites like this are lost each year. When Blink saw how fast it was eroding, he decided¹⁵ to find an archaeologist and ask for help. That led him to Brian Ostahowski. He gets a lot of calls like this at least once a month, people who say...

BRIAN OSTAHOWSKI: I have a great archaeological site in my backyard. Chances are they probably do.

WENDLAND: So we hopped¹⁶ in a boat with Richie Blink and went out there.

OSTAHOWSKI: Richie wasn't lying. This is actually a very, very important archaeological site.

WENDLAND: Based on the pottery and soil, Ostahowski he says native people lived at the site 3 to 500 years ago. The pieces of broken pottery are probably from an ancient trash pile called a midden. There could even be human remains¹⁷ there.

OSTAHOWSKI: You're talking about a whole ceremonial center that could tell you about life ways or the change of life ways that's going to be completely gone within 10 years. It maybe took 300 years of occupation there.

WENDLAND: Three hundred years to build it, in just 10 years it could be erased¹⁸. Ostahowski took samples of the soil for radiocarbon dating. Unlike the usual slow-paced archaeology dig, Ostahowski wants to excavate¹⁹ the mound²⁰ as soon as possible and study the pottery shards and oyster²¹ shells, but the truth is there just isn't much time.

OSTAHOWSKI: We're talking about different ways that we can come up with kind of emergency action, emergency excavations²².

WENDLAND: He wants to learn more, like how long people lived there and how many different occupations there might have been. These details could help fill gaps in our understanding of the prehistoric²³ Plaquemine culture, which includes tribes that lived on the lower Mississippi before Europeans came. For Blink, it's more than ancient history at stake, it's personal history, where he grew up. He honors that in his own way.

Did you ever bring offerings when you came out?

BLINK: Yes.

WENDLAND: Like what?

BLINK: Two weeks ago I brought some lemons.

WENDLAND: And under a windswept tree on top of the small mound, a handful of dried up lemons sits in the shade. For NPR News, I'm Tegan Wendland in Plaquemines Parish, La.

1 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

2 marshes   

n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cows were grazing on the marshes. 牛群在湿地上吃草。
• We had to cross the marshes. 我们不得不穿过那片沼泽地。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 archaeology   

n.考古学

参考例句：

• She teaches archaeology at the university.她在大学里教考古学。
• He displayed interest in archaeology.他对考古学有兴趣。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

6 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

7 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

8 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

9 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

10 shard   

n.（陶瓷器、瓦等的）破片，碎片

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air.目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。
• That's the same stuff we found in the shard.那与我们发现的碎片在材质上一样。

11 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

12 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

13 hops   

跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• The sparrow crossed the lawn in a series of hops. 那麻雀一蹦一跳地穿过草坪。
• It is brewed from malt and hops. 它用麦精和蛇麻草酿成。

14 eroding   

侵蚀，腐蚀( erode的现在分词 )； 逐渐毁坏，削弱，损害

参考例句：

• The coast is slowly eroding. 海岸正慢慢地被侵蚀。
• Another new development is eroding the age-old stereotype of the male warrior. 另一个新现象是，久已形成的男人皆武士的形象正逐渐消失。

15 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

16 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

17 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

18 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 excavate   

vt.挖掘，挖出

参考例句：

• They plan to excavate a large hole.他们计划挖个大洞。
• A new Danish expedition is again excavating the site in annual summer digs.一支新的丹麦探险队又在那个遗址上进行一年一度的夏季挖掘。

20 mound   

n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫

参考例句：

• The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。
• The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。

21 oyster   

n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人

参考例句：

• I enjoy eating oyster; it's really delicious.我喜欢吃牡蛎，它味道真美。
• I find I fairly like eating when he finally persuades me to taste the oyster.当他最后说服我尝尝牡蛎时，我发现我相当喜欢吃。

22 excavations   

n.挖掘( excavation的名词复数 )；开凿；开凿的洞穴（或山路等）；（发掘出来的）古迹

参考例句：

• The excavations are open to the public. 发掘现场对公众开放。
• This year's excavations may reveal ancient artifacts. 今年的挖掘可能会发现史前古器物。 来自辞典例句

23 prehistoric   

adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的

参考例句：

• They have found prehistoric remains.他们发现了史前遗迹。
• It was rather like an exhibition of prehistoric electronic equipment.这儿倒像是在展览古老的电子设备。