Çatalhöyük
Professor: OK, we’ve been talking about early agriculture in the near east. So let’s concentrate on one site and see what we can learn from it. Let’s look at Catalhoyuk. Ah… I’d better write that down. Catalhoyuk, that’s about as close as we get in English. It’s Turkish, really. The sites in modern day Turkey, and who knows what the original inhabitants called it.
Anyway, uh…Catalhoyuk wasn’t the first agricultural settlement in the near east, but it was pretty early, settled about 9000 years ago in the Neolithic period. And ...umm...the settlement...ah...town really, lasted about a thousand years and grew to a size of about eight or ten thousand people. That certainly makes it one of the largest towns in the world at that time.
One of the things that make the settlement of this size impressive is the time period. It’s the Neolithic, remember, the late Stone Age. So the people that lived there had only stone tools, no metals. So everything they accomplished, like building this town, they did with just stone, plus wood, bricks, that sort of thing.
But you got to remember that it wasn’t just any stone they had, they had obsidian. And umm...obsidian is a black, volcanic, well, almost like glass. It flakes very nicely into really sharp points. The sharpest tools of the entire Stone Age were made of obsidian. And urrr...the people of Catalhoyuk got theirs from further inland, from central Turkey, traded for it, probably.
Anyway, what I wanna focus on is the way the town was built. The houses are all rectangular, one storey made of sun dried bricks. But what’s really interesting is that there are no spaces between them, no streets in other words, and so generally no doors on the houses either. People walked around on the roofs and entered the house through a hatchway on the roof, down a wooden ladder. You can still see the diagonal marks of the ladders in the plaster on the inside walls.
Once you were in the house, there would be one main room and a couple of small rooms for storage. The main room had the hearths, for cooking and for heat. It would’ve been pretty cold during the winters. And it also looks like they made their tools near the fire. There tends to be a lot of obsidian flakes and chips in the hearth ashes, but no chimney.
The smoke just went out the same hatchway that people used for going in and out themselves. So there would have been an open fire inside the house with only one hole in the roof to let the smoke out. You and I would have found it a bit too smoky in there. You can see on the walls, which they plastered and decorated with paintings. They ended up with a layer of black soot on them, and so did people’s lungs. The bones found in the graves show a layer of soot on the inside of the ribs. And that’s another unusual feature of Catalhoyuk, the burial sites.
The graves have all been found under the houses, right under the floors. And it maybe this burial custom that explains why the houses were packed in so tightly without streets. I mean, you might think it was for protection or something, but there has been no evidence found yet of any violent attack that would indicate that kind of danger. It maybe they wanted to live as near as possible to their ancestors’ graves and be buried near them themselves. But it makes a good point.
Based on excavations, we can know the layout of the houses and the location of the graves, but we’re only guessing when we tried to say why they did it that way. That’s the way it is with archeology. You are dealing with the physical remains that people left behind. We have no sure access to what they thought and how they felt about things. I mean it’s interesting to speculate. And the physical artifacts can give us clues, but there is a lot we can’t really know.
So, for instance, their art. They painted on the plastered walls and usually they painted hunting scenes with wild animals in them. Now they did hunt and they also raised cereal crops and kept sheep, but we don’t know why so many of the paintings are of hunting scenes. Was it supposed to have religious or magical significance? That’s the kind of thing we can only guess at based on clues. And hopefully, further excavation of Catalhoyuk will yield more clues. But we’ll probably never know for sure.
TPO1
1.What is the lecture mainly about?
a) Art in the Neolithic period
b) The site of a Neolithic town
c) Methods of making stone tools
d) The domestication of plants and animals by early farmers
2.What does the professor imply about the tools used by the people of Catalhoyuk?
a) They were made of stone that came from Catalhoyuk.
b) They were among the sharpest tools available at the time.
c) They were often used in religious rituals.
d) They were used primarily for agriculture.
3.What does the professor say about the entrances to the houses in Catalhoyuk?
a) They were in the roof.
b) They were usually kept closed.
c) They allowed smoke to escape from the house.
d) They stood opposite one another across narrow streets.
4.What does the professor say about Catalhoyuk graves?
a) The graves contained precious stones.
b) Many people were buried in each grave.
c) The grave were located under the house floors.
d) The graves contained ashes rather than bones.
5.What does the professor think of the idea that the inhabitants of Catalhoyuk deliberately arranged their house so that they could live near their ancestors' graves?
a) She thinks it is a good guess, but only a guess.
b) She thinks some evidence supports it, but other evidence contradicts it.
c) She thinks that further excavations will soon disprove it.
d) She thinks that it is not appropriate to make such guesses about the distant past.
6.What are three things the professor says about the artwork of Catalhoyuk?
a) It was clearly important to the Catalhoyuk religion.
b) It became covered with soot.
c) It often shows farmers at work.
d) Its significance is unknown.
e) It contains many hunting scenes.
TPO1托福听力Lecture3答案解析
第1题：主旨题
正确答案：B
对应原文：0'9"-0'16" 0'32"-0'43"let’s concentrate on one site and see what we can learn from it. Let’s look at Catalhoyuk...
Catalhoyuk wasn’t the first agricultural settlement in the near east, but it was pretty early, settled about 9000 years ago in the Neolithic period.
解析：讲座开始提到聚焦于一个叫做C的遗址，这是一个石器时代的小镇。
第2题：推断题
正确答案：B
对应原文：1'6"-1'39"So the people that lived there had only stone tools, no metals. So everything they accomplished, like building this town, they did with just stone, plus wood, bricks, that sort of thing. But you got to remember that it wasn’t just any stone they had, they had obsidian. And umm... obsidian is a black, volcanic, well, almost like glass. It flakes very nicely into really sharp points. The sharpest tools of the entire Stone Age were made of obsidian.
解析：教授谈到O是非常好的材料，所以尤其制作的矛头是当时最锋利的。
第3题：细节-多选题
正确答案：AC
对应原文：2'7"-2'14" 2'43"-2'48"People walked around on the roofs and entered the house through a hatchway on the roof, down a wooden ladder……
The smoke just went out the same hatchway that people used for going in and out themselves.
解析：interesting提示考点。谈到房屋之间没有街道，也乜有们，所以人们通过梯子从房顶进出。而且说有火堆，但没有烟囱，烟也是从这些通道排出去的。
第4题：细节题
正确答案：C
对应原文：3'7"-3'23"The bones found in the graves show a layer of soot on the inside of the ribs. And that’s another unusual feature of Catalhoyuk, the burial sites. The graves have all been found under the houses, right under the floors.
解析：提到C遗址的坟墓就在房子下面，就在底板正下方。注意right这种副词，“刚好，恰好”提示考点。
第5题：态度题
正确答案：A
对应原文：3'39"-3'58"It maybe they wanted to live as near as possible to their ancestors’ graves and be buried near them themselves. But it makes a good point. Based on excavations, we can know the layout of the houses and the location of the graves, but we’re only guessing when we tried to say why they did it that way.
解析：提到说这些人把坟墓安排在房子正下方是为了希望和祖先的坟墓离得越近越好，这种理论虽然很有道理，但这只是猜测，我们是不能确定他们一定这样做。做猜想是好事，但证据不足。
第6题：细节-多选题
正确答案：BDE
对应原文：2'58"-3'5" 4'19"-4'27" 4'36"-4'43"You can see on the walls, which they plastered and decorated with paintings. They ended up with a layer of black soot on them......
They painted on the plastered walls and usually they painted hunting scenes with wild animals in them......
Was it supposed to have religious or magical significance? That’s the kind of thing we can only guess at based on clues.
解析：提到画上最终覆盖上了一层黑煤灰。而且这些画的题材通常是打猎的场景。但是我们却不知道原因，只能根据一些线索猜测， 却不可能明确知道，究竟是有宗教意义还是神迹意义呢?说明这些画的重要性不为人知。
以上就是小编为大家带来的托福tpo听力1(文本+题目+答案解析)，希望各位托福备考小伙伴们能够喜欢哦!更多精彩内容尽在，预祝广大托福考生都能取得理想成绩!