What is the importance of the dots, lines, and symbols engraved on stone, bones and ivory?
刻在石头、骨头和象牙上的点、线和符号的重要性是什么？
Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times.
未来的历史学家来记录我们这个时代的历史时，将处于一个独特的地位。
They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates.
他们很难知道从不断积累的大量证据中选择哪些事实。
What is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word.
更重要的是，他们不必仅仅依靠书面文字。
Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMs are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have.
电影，视频，Cd和CD-Rom只是他们将拥有的令人困惑的信息量中的一部分。
They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action.
他们将能够看到和听到我们的行动。
But the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task.
但历史学家试图重建遥远的过去总是面临着一项艰巨的任务。
He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available.
他必须从可用的几条微不足道的线索中推断出他能做什么。
Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.
即使是看似微不足道的遗骸也可以对早期人类的历史提供有趣的了解。
Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture,
到目前为止，历史学家认为日历是随着农业的出现而产生的,
for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons.
因为那时人类面临着真正需要了解一些关于季节的事情。
Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.
最近的科学证据似乎表明这种假设是不正确的。
Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols
历史学家长期以来一直对点，线和符号感到困惑
which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths.
它们被刻在墙上、骨头上和猛犸象的象牙上。
The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age
制作这些标记的游牧民族在最后一个冰河时期以狩猎和捕鱼为生
which began about 35, 000 B.C.and ended about 10, 000 B.C.
开始于公元前35,000年，结束于公元前10,000年。
By correlating markings made in various parts of the world,
通过关联世界各地的标记,
historians have been able to read this difficult code.
历史学家已经能够阅读这个困难的代码。
They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon.
他们发现它与日子的流逝和月相有关。
It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar.
事实上，它是一种原始类型的日历。
It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression.
人们早就知道，墙壁上描绘的狩猎场景不仅仅是一种艺术表现形式。
They had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing.
他们有一个明确的含义，因为他们是接近早期的人可以得到写作。
It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them.
这些绘画与有时伴随它们的标记之间可能存在一定的关系。
It seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20, 000 years earlier than has been supposed.
看来，人类正在作出真正的努力，以了解季节20,000年早于已经被认为。
