本篇文章共分 5 段，針對距今 10,000 年前到距今 3.000 年期間撒哈拉以南非洲的糧食生產方式做整理，說明這在此時間中當地居民的牧牛與農業進行的方式與面臨到的環境變化因素以及其因應之道。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa 撒哈拉以南非洲的早期糧食生產

1. 更新世非洲居民的糧食作物

   At the end of the Pleistocene (around 10,000 B.C.), the technologies of food production may have already been employed on the fringes of the rain forests of western and central Africa, where the common use of such root plants as the African yam led people to recognize the advantages of growing their own food. The yam can easily be resprouted if the top is replanted. This primitive form of “vegeculture” (cultivation of root and tree crops) may have been the economic tradition onto which the cultivation of summer rainfall cereal crops was grafted as it came into use south of the grassland areas on the Sahara's southern borders.

   在更新世末期（大約公元前 10,000年），食物生產技術可能已經在非洲西部和中部的雨林邊緣得到應用，那裡普遍使用非洲山藥這樣的根莖植物，使人們認識到種植自己的食物的好處。如果頂部被重新種植，山藥可以很容易地重新發芽。這種原始形式的「蔬菜培育」（種植根莖類作物）可能是一種經濟傳統，當夏季降雨穀物作物的種植在撒哈拉南部邊界的草原地區開始使用時，這種傳統被嫁接到其上。

2. 牧牛人的生活地區與方式

   As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C., pastoral peoples (cattle herders) moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan. By 3000 B.C., just as ancient Egyptian civilization was coming into being along the Nile, they had settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south. The East African highlands are ideal cattle country and the home today of such famous cattle-herding peoples as the Masai. The highlands were inhabited by hunter-gatherers living around mountains near the plains until about 3300 B.C., when the first cattle herders appeared. These cattle people may have moved between fixed settlements during the wet and dry seasons, living off hunting in the dry months and their own livestock and agriculture during the rains.

   公元前 5000 年後，隨著撒哈拉沙漠的乾涸，牧民（牧牛人）沿著主要水道向南遷移，進入西非和蘇丹的熱帶草原地帶。到公元前 3000 年，就在古埃及文明沿著尼羅河逐漸形成的時候，他們已經在遠在南方的東非高原中心地帶定居下來。東非高原是理想的牛鄉，也是今天像馬賽人這樣著名的牧牛民族的家園。高原上居住著狩獵採集者，他們生活在平原附近的山脈周圍，直到大約公元前 3300 年，第一批牧牛人出現。這些牧牛人可能在雨季和旱季在固定的定居點之間移動，在旱季靠打獵為生，在雨季靠自己的牲畜和農業為生。

3. 牧牛環境與需求

   As was the case elsewhere, cattle were demanding animals in Africa. They required water at least every 24 hours and large tracts of grazing grass if herds of any size were to be maintained. The secret was the careful selection of grazing land, especially in environments where seasonal rainfall led to marked differences in graze quality throughout the year. Even modest cattle herds required plenty of land and considerable mobility. To acquire such land often required moving herds considerable distances, even from summer to winter pastures. At the same time, the cattle owners had to graze their stock in tsetse-fly-free areas. The only protection against human and animal sleeping sickness, a disease carried by the tsetse fly, was to avoid settling or farming such areas—a constraint severely limiting the movements of cattle-owning farmers in eastern and central Africa. As a result, small cattle herds spread south rapidly in areas where they could be grazed. Long before cereal agriculture took hold far south of the Sahara, some hunter-gatherer groups in the savanna woodlands of eastern and southern Africa may have acquired cattle, and perhaps other domesticated animals, by gift exchange or through raids on herding neighbors.

   與其他地方的情況一樣，牛在非洲也是很難滿足的動物。如果要維持適當規模的牛群，它們至少每 24 小時都需要水和大面積的牧草。秘訣在於仔細選擇放牧地，特別是在季節性降雨導致全年牧草質量明顯差異的環境中。即使是規模不大的牛群也需要大量的土地和相當大的流動性。要獲得這樣的土地往往需要將牛群移到相當遠的地方，甚至從夏季牧場移到冬季牧場。同時，牛主必須在沒有采采蠅的地區放牧。防止人類和動物昏睡病（一種由采采蠅攜帶的疾病）的唯一辦法是避免在這些地區定居或耕種—這種限制嚴重地限制了非洲東部和中部擁有牛隻的農民的行動。因此，小型牛群在可以放牧的地區迅速向南擴展。早在撒哈拉以南的穀類農業佔據主導地位之前，非洲東部和南部草原林地的一些狩獵採集者群體可能已經透過禮物交換或襲擊放牧的鄰居而獲得了牛隻，也許還有其他馴化的動物。

4. 農耕方式

   Contrary to popular belief: there is no such phenomenon as “pure” pastoralists, a society that subsists on its herds alone. The Saharan herders who moved southward to escape drought were almost certainly also cultivating sorghum, millet, and other tropical rainfall crops. By 1500 B.C., cereal agriculture was widespread throughout the savanna belt south of the Sahara. Small farming communities dotted the grasslands and forest margins of eastern West Africa, all of them depending on what is called shifting agriculture. This form of agriculture involved clearing woodland, burning the felled brush over the cleared plot, mixing the ash into the soil, and then cultivating the prepared fields. After a few years, the soil was exhausted, so the farmer moved on, exploiting new woodland and leaving the abandoned fields to lie fallow. Shifting agriculture, often called slash-and-burn, was highly adaptive for savanna farmers without plows, for it allowed cereal farming with the minimal expenditure of energy.

   與流行的看法相反：不存在「純粹的」牧民這種現象，這種社會只靠牧群來維持生計。為躲避乾旱而南遷的撒哈拉牧民幾乎肯定也在種植高粱、小米和其他熱帶降雨作物。到公元前 1500 年，穀物農業普及到撒哈拉以南的整個熱帶草原地帶。小型農業社區遍佈西非東部的草原和森林邊緣，所有這些社區都依賴於所謂的輪墾農業。這種農業形式包括清理林地，在清理過的地塊上焚燒砍下的灌木，將灰燼混入土壤，然後在準備好的田地上耕種。幾年後，土壤被耗盡，所以農民繼續前進，開發新的林地，讓廢棄的田地休耕。輪墾農業，通常被稱為刀耕火種，對於沒有犁的熱帶草原農民來說是非常適應的，因為它可以用最小的能量消耗進行穀物耕種。

5. 農耕的散播

   The process of clearance and burning may have seemed haphazard to the uninformed eye, but it was not. Except in favored areas, such as regularly inundated floodplains, tropical Africa's soils were of only moderate to low fertility. The art of farming was careful soil selection, that is, knowing which soils were light and easily cultivable, could be readily turned with small hoes, and would maintain their fertility over several years' planting, for cereal crops rapidly remove nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil. Once it had taken hold, slash-and-burn agriculture expanded its frontiers rapidly as village after village took up new lands, moving forward so rapidly that one expert has estimated it took a mere two centuries to cover 2,000 kilometers from eastern to southern Africa.

   清理和焚燒的過程在不知情的人看來可能是雜亂無章的，但事實並非如此。除了在有利的地區，如經常被淹沒的洪泛區，熱帶非洲的土壤只有中等至低等的肥力。耕作的藝術在於仔細選擇土壤，也就是說，要知道哪些土壤是輕質的、容易耕種的，可以用小鋤頭輕易翻動，並能在幾年的種植過程中保持其肥力，因為穀類作物會迅速清除土壤中的氮和其他營養成分。一旦站穩腳跟，刀耕火種的農業隨著一個又一個村莊佔據新的土地，它的疆域迅速擴大，發展速度如此之快，以至於一位專家估計，從非洲東部到南部，僅用了兩個世紀就覆蓋了 2,000 公里。