当未来的历史学家着手记录我们这个时代的历史时，他们将处于一个独特的位置。
Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times.
他们将几乎不知道从那稳步积累的海量证据中选取哪些事实。
They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates.
更重要的是，他们将不必仅仅依赖文字记录。
What is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word.
电影、录像、CD 和 CD-ROM 不过是未来历史学家将拥有的数量惊人的信息中的一小部分。
Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMs are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have.
他们将能够——可以这么说——亲眼看到并亲耳听到我们的活动。
They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action.
但是，试图还原遥远过去的历史学家，始终面临着一项艰巨的任务。
But the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task.
他只能从少得可怜的那几条线索中尽量推断出一些东西。
He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available.
即便是看起来微不足道的遗物，也能对早期人类历史产生有趣的阐释作用。
Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.
迄今为止，历史学家们一直以为日历是随着农业的出现而产生的，因为那时候人类面临着了解季节的迫切需要。
Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons.
近年的科学证据似乎表明，这一假设是错误的。
Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.
历史学家们长期以来对刻画在墙壁、骨头和猛犸象牙上的那些点、线和符号感到困惑不解。
Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths.
制作这些标记的游牧民族，在大约公元前35000年开始、公元前10000年结束的末次冰河时代，以狩猎和捕鱼为生。
The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age which began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C.
通过对比世界各地刻下的标记，历史学家已经能够解读这一难解的符号体系。
By correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code.
他们发现，这些标记与日子的流逝和月相有关。
They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon.
事实上，这就是一种原始的历法。
It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar.
长期以来人们都知道，描绘在洞穴壁上的狩猎场景，并不仅仅是一种艺术表达。
It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression.
它们有着明确的含义，因为这已是早期人类所能达到的最接近书写的形式。
They had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing.
这些壁画与那些有时伴随其旁的标记之间，很可能存在明确的关联。
It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them.
看来，人类试图理解季节更替，比人们以往所推测的要早20000年。
It seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed.