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Egypt felled by famine
Even ancient Egypts mighty pyramid builders were powerless in the face of the famine that helped bring down their civilian around 2180BC. Now evidence gleaned from mud deposited by the River Nile suggests that a shift in climate thousands of kilometers to the south was ultimately to blem -- and the same or worse could happen today.
The ancient Egyptians depended on the Niles annual floods to irrigate their crops. But any change in climate that pushed the African monsoons southwards out of Ethiopia would have diminished these floods.
Dwindling rains in the Ethiopian highlands would have meant fewer plants to establish the soil. When rain did fall it would have washed large amounts of soil into the Blue Nile and into Egypt, along with sediment from the White Nile.
The Blue Nile mud has a different isotope signature from that of the White Nile. So by analyzing isotope differences in mud deposited in the Nile Delta, Michael Krom of leeds University worked out what proportion of sediment came from each branch of the river.
Krom reasons that during periods of drought, the amount of the Blue Nile mud in the river would be relatively high. He found that one of these periods, from 4,500 to 4,200 years ago, immediately predates the fall of the Egypts Old Kingdom.
The weakened waters would have been catastrophic for the Egyptians. Changes that affect food supply dont have to be very large to have a ripple effect in societies, says Bill Ryan of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.
Similar events today could be even more devastating, says team member Daniel Stanley, a geoarchaeologist from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.. Anything humans do to shift the climate belts would have an even worse effect along the Nile system because the populations have increased dramatically.
1. Why does the author mention pyramid builders?
A. because they once worked miracles.
B. because they were well-built
C. because they were actually very weak
D. because even they were unable to rescue their civilization
2. Which of the following factors was ultimately responsible for the fall of the civilization of ancient Egypt?
A. Change of climate
B. famine
C. food
D. population growth
3. Which of the following statements is true?
A. The White Nile is the trunk of the River Nile
B. The White Nile is the trunk of the Blue Bile
C. The White Nile a branch of the Blue Nile
D. The White Nile and the Blue Nile are branches of the River Nile
4. According to Krom, Egypts Old Kingdom fell
A. immediately after a period of drought
B. immediately after a period of flood
C. just before a drought struck
D. just before a flood struck
5. The word devastating in the last paragraph could be best replaced by
A. frustrating
B. damaging
C. defeating
D. worrying
标准答案： D,A,D,A,B
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