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  3. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE ANASAZI (1) A major question in the archeology of the southwestern region of the United States i

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE ANASAZI (1) A major question in the archeology of the southwestern region of the United States i

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问题                                             ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE ANASAZI
    (1) A major question in the archeology of the southwestern region of the United States is why so many impressive settlements, and even entire regions, were abandoned in prehistoric times. Archeologist Tim Kohler has suggested that the nature of human-environmental interaction was an important reason in the case of the Anasazi people. The actual case study that Kohler relies on is from the Dolores River basin of southwest Colorado, where the Anasazi seem to have moved in about 600 A.D. Over the following couple of centuries, the population increased, and they aggregated (or gathered) into villages, but by about 900 A.D. the area began to be abandoned. Other archeologists have identified the immediate cause of this abandonment to be a series of short growing seasons that would have put pressure on corn production at that high altitude. Kohler, however, asserts that a growing population led to human-environmental interactions that caused people to live in villages, intensify agrarian food production, deforest the region, deplete the local soils, and ultimately abandon the area.
    (2) Kohler uses several kinds of evidence to show that human effects, not solely climatic factors, were important factors in the abandonment of settlements. One key indicator of change in the environment surrounding these prehistoric settlements is the wood that was used there. Archeological study of wood charcoal found in hearths dating to the various episodes of occupation indicated that the species used changed in a patterned way. Over time there was a decline in the use of juniper and pinon (native, slow-growing species of trees) and an increase in woody shrubs and fast-growing cottonwood. The species of wood used in the construction of buildings also changed. Fewer pinon were being used, and those that were used seemed to be from increasingly old trees, while juniper continued to be from young trees. The implication is that the forest that did remain was changing to relatively more junipers, a tree that is more fire resistant, better able to reproduce in open settings, and less desirable for construction than pinon. Kohler argues that pinon was disappearing from the locale of settlements and that this put an additional nutritional strain on the population, which used nuts from the tree as well as its wood. [A] The relative proportion of different species of animals hunted by people in the region also changed progressively. [B] A final source of evidence was the seeds found in the archeological deposits, which had blown or been brought to the settlement. [C] As time went on, there was a substantial increase in seeds from pioneer plants, attesting both to agricultural intensification and to an increasingly disturbed local environment. [D]
     (3) This evidence has convinced Kohler of the importance of human impact in degrading the local environment. His interpretation of the situation is that by about 840 A.D., people had aggregated into villages in favorable settings because of their competitive organizational advantages over smaller units in the face of growing population and depletion of local wild resources. Hence, the very nature of the initial slash-and-burn agriculture encouraged a further dependence on agriculture and the aggregation of people into denser settlements. However, there are costs to aggregation, such as the increasing distance to usable fields, the heavier pressure on local soils, and the accompanying increase in agricultural risk. The Anasazi responded to this by further intensification, such as water-control mechanisms, to feed the increasing population. Such a trajectory is fraught with risks, but it is also pushed forward by advantages it bestows on its participants who organize and cooperate. Advantages might include sharing food across groups in a village, investment in facilities to improve the processing and storage of food, and cooperative labor pools and social groupings larger than villages, which would enable organized long-distance hunts and participation in trading networks. Larger and larger villages became possible, but this also made the system vulnerable to collapse. A reliance on the management of resources through cooperative action reduced their flexibility of action, so that when poor seasons occurred, people were seriously hurt. Thus an expectable aberration in the climatic regime may have been enough to cause the collapse of the village system in the Dolores area.
An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
Areheologist Tim Kohler has attempted to explain why villages and areas in the southwestern part of the United States were abandoned around 900 A.D.
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Answer Choices
(A) Kohler attributes the immediate cause of the abandonment to problems with corn production at a high altitude during short growing seasons.
(B) Kohler maintains that the Anasazi’s transition to living together in villages was a key factor in the process of the degradation of the environment.
(C) The development of intensive agricultural methods depleted the soil and resource management strategies made it difficult to cope with poor growing seasons.
(D) Kohler’s research indicates that in addition to agriculture, the Anasazi lived on the pinon nuts they grew and the animals they hunted in the area
(E) Increases in seeds from pioneer plants and systematic changes in the animals hunted and the trees used for construction and fuel are evidence of environmental degradation.
(F) The dependence of the Anasazi on food supplies from nearby villages with better systems of water control and food storage facilities resulted in the Anasazi abandoning the larger villages.
选项
答案B,C,E
解析 本题为文章总结题。B项“科勒认为，阿纳萨齐人向同住村庄的过渡是环境退化过程中的一个关键因素”是对第1段最后一句的整合，故B项符合题意。C项“集约型农业方法的发展耗尽了土壤，而资源管理策略使其难以应对不良的生长季节”是对第3段第5句和第3段倒数第2句“依靠合作行动来管理资源会降低人们行动的灵活性，所以，当歉收的时节来临时，人们会遭受巨大损失”的整合，故C项信息与原文内容相符。E项“先锋植物种子的增加，以及狩猎动物和用于建筑与燃料的树木的系统变化是环境退化的证据”是对第2段的整合，故E项符合原文内容。A项“科勒将遗弃的直接原因归因于高海拔地区的玉米在短暂生长期的生产问题”，根据第1段倒数第2句可知，这是其他考古学家的观点，不是科勒的，故A项错误。D项“科勒的研究表明，除了农业以外，阿纳萨齐人还以他们种植的矮松果和狩猎的动物为生”，原文并未提及是阿纳萨齐人种植了矮松，故排除D项。F项“阿纳萨齐人的粮食供应依靠附近村庄，因为他们拥有更好的治水机制和食品储存设施，这导致阿纳萨齐人遗弃了较大的村庄”，原文并未提及阿纳萨齐人的粮食供应依靠附近村庄，且这也不是阿纳萨齐人遗弃了较大的村庄的原因，故F项错误。
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