英语听力：探索发现 2012-09-26 长毛象王国 Mammoth—8

 The answer lies in the effects of North America’s immense and fluctuating ice sheets. As they grew, they locked up so much water that the sea levels began to fall. 

 

The Bering Sea between Asia and North America began to drain away, leaving a bridge of land exposed, the Bering Land Bridge, roughly a thousand milse wide and covering an area twice that of modern Texas. This was the route by which lions, woolly mammoths and other creatures colonised the American continent.

 

During the last Ice Age, the Bering Land Bridge formed once more. And this time it allowed a different colonist¹ to cross, one that would have a huge and permanent effect upon the continent. This is one of their first known haunts, the Mesa Site in Northern Alaska, a key point on the Ice Age map. Beautifully crafted spear-points found here are known to date back almost 14,000 years and tell us that the first people to cross the land bridge were skilled, sophisticated hunters. 

 

But what were they doing on this particular spot? The climate was harsh, the location extremely exposed. It’s not a place you’d choose to make a campsite. But if you were a hunter, what you needed was a view. The Mesa was the perfect lookout² point with panoramas³ of surrounding land and game. These early hunters had spread all the way from Asia. What did they find on the other side of the Bering bridge?

1 colonist   

n.殖民者，移民

参考例句：

• The indians often attacked the settlements of the colonist.印地安人经常袭击殖民者的定居点。
• In the seventeenth century, the colonist here thatched their roofs with reeds and straw,just as they did in england.在17世纪，殖民者在这里用茅草盖屋，就像他们在英国做的一样。

2 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

3 panoramas   

全景画( panorama的名词复数 )； 全景照片； 一连串景象或事

参考例句：

• Meeting room that free your imagination by opening to grand panoramas. 面对城市全景的会客厅任你的想象驰聘。
• The grand panoramas of NORWAY prove irresistible to adventurers. 挪威的壮丽景色有着让人无法抵制的魅力。