世界小史 第9章:头盖骨

 　　On another occasion, but still in Germany – in the Neander valley – a human skull¹ was found.

　　在另一个地方，但仍在德国，在尼安德尔山谷，人们发现了一块人的头盖骨。

　　And this was also immensely interesting because nobody alive today has a skull like this one either.

　　这有意思极了，因为现在活着的人也没有这样的一块头盖骨。

　　Instead of a forehead like ours it just had two thick ridges² above the eyebrows³.

　　没有我们这样的额头，眉毛上仅有两个厚厚的皱摺。

　　Now, if all our thinking goes on behind our foreheads and these people didn't have any foreheads, then perhaps they didn't think as much as we do.

　　现在如果我们所有的思考都是在是我们额头的后部进行的，而如果这些人没有额头，那么他们也许就不像我们思考得这么多。

　　Or at any rate, thinking may have been harder for them.

　　无论如何，思考可能对他们更困难。

　　So the people who examined the skull concluded that once upon a time there were people who weren't very good at thinking,

　　所以检查了这头盖骨的人们总结说曾经有不善于思考的人，

　　but who were better at biting than we are today.

　　但他们却比现今的我们有更强的咀嚼能力。

1 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

2 ridges   

n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊

参考例句：

• The path winds along mountain ridges. 峰回路转。
• Perhaps that was the deepest truth in Ridges's nature. 在里奇斯的思想上，这大概可以算是天经地义第一条了。

3 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。