英语听力：探索发现 2012-07-27 爱尔兰的故事 Story Of Ireland—6

 -We can see he has this very unusual hairstyle. The front of the forehead was shaved, and then the rest of hair was bundled up a bit like a Mohawk. And that was held in place with a hair gel, which was made using resin¹ imported from the Pyrenees. 

 

-The very fact that you find resin from the Mediterranean² in his hair suggests we were trading with that region.

 

-Ireland's position as an island doesn't isolate³ it in ancient times. It makes it more accessible because travel by sea is much easier than travel over land. 

 

Clonycavan Man gives us our first sight of an Irishman. And here in the National Museum we see some of the finest examples of what we now consider Celtic art. But the idea of the Irish as racially Celtic, unlike the Anglo-Saxon English, belongs to the 19th century. For nationalists and their English enemies much depended on belonging to an imagined finer race.

 

-So was Clonycavan Man a Celt?

 

-He would have been Celtic in the sense that he would have spoken a Celtic language. He would have spoken an early form of the Gaelic language, the Irish language. And the art is associated with Celtic people on the continent. I don't think it means that we are racially descended⁴ from a Celtic nation. Genetically⁵ this man doesn't have a lot to do with the Gauls of France, or the Celts of central Europe as described by the Greeks and the Romans. And..

 

-So we Irish, let me just nail this one down because it's critical. We are no more racially Celtic than our English neighbours, are we?

 

-No, we are no more so nor less so. Our cousins on the other island have certainly as much a claim to their Celtic past I think as we have.

1 resin   

n.树脂，松香，树脂制品；vt.涂树脂

参考例句：

• This allyl type resin is a highly transparent, colourless material.这种烯丙基型的树脂是一种高度透明的、无色材料。
• This is referred to as a thixotropic property of the resin.这种特性叫做树脂的触变性。

2 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

3 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

4 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

5 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物