【跟着英剧练发音】A Histry Of Britain - 7（在线收听）

 文本：

The mainland too, of course, had its burial chambers, like the long barrow at West Kennet. And there were also the great stone circles, the largest at Avebury. But the most spectacular of all at Stonehenge. By 1,000 BC, things were changing fast. All over the British landscape, a protracted struggle for good land was taking place. Forests were cleared so that Iron Age Britain was not, as was once romantically imagined, an unbroken forest kingdom stretching from Cornwall to Inverness. It was rather a patchwork of open fields, dotted here and there with woodland copses giving cover for game, especially wild pigs. And it was a crowded island. We now think that as many people lived on this land as during the reign of Elizabeth 1, 2,500 years later. Some archaeologists believe that almost as much land was being farmed in the Iron Age as in 1914. So it comes no surprise to see one spectacular difference from the little world of Skara Brae, great windowless towers. They were built in the centuries before the Roman invasions, when population pressure was at its most intense and farmers had growing need of protection, first from the elements, but later from each other.

译文：

当然，在大陆上同样建有墓穴，诸如西坎奈特长墓，（英国最长的古墓，约前3700年建成)。其他地方同样也有巨石圈，其中最大的在埃夫伯里，而最为壮丽的，当数史前巨石阵。公元前1000年前后，这里发生着天翻地覆的变化。不列颠全境，进行着一场良田之争，森林被夷为耕地。所以铁器时代的不列颠，已并非曾经那个坚不可摧的森林帝国。领土自康奈尔绵延至因弗内斯，更多的，是一片片广阔的田野。星罗棋布的丛林穿插其间，为像野猪一样的动物们提供了一片乐土。这还是一个拥挤的岛国，现今普遍认为，当时这片土地上的人口，与2500年后伊丽莎白一世时期一样多。部分考古学家认为，铁器时代的耕地面积几乎与1914年一样多。因此也就不必惊异于，斯卡拉布雷的这一奇特之处，巨大的无窗石塔。罗马入侵数世纪前，它们就被筑造于此，因为当时正是人口压力最重之时。而农民也日益需要加强自我保护，之前是为对抗自然，后来则是互相防范。