Passage Four Thediscovery of a dwarfed（矮个子）"humanbeing"who live

Passage Four Thediscovery of a dwarfed（矮个子）"humanbeing"who lived in Flores,Indonesia,up to 18,000 years ago is changingthe way we think about the human family.This"Flores Human"was threefoot tall and her brain was smaller than that of the average chimp（黑猩猩）,yet she and her relatives apparently lived fully human lives.They seem to have made tools,worked together to find food and cook it,andperhaps even burried their dead with ceremony. It was a major surprise to find tools associated with the newhuman family member.The tools are like those formerly seen only with Europeanfossils（化石）from our own species;Homo sapiens（智人）;and the oldest of them were made 9,400 years ago.Homo sapiens isthought to have arrived in the island about 4,000 years ago,much too late tobe responsible for the tools.If this tiny human made the tools,then theinside structure（结构）of its brain must have been morelike our own than a chimp′s,despite being just a third the size of ours. This"new human"was suspected to be a dwarfed branch ofHomo erectus（直立人,）.When creatures are separated in regionswith rare resources but few enemies,being big is a disadvantage,and evolutiontends to shrink them,a process known as island dwarfing.Could naturalselection make a human smaller while keeping--even improving--mental ability?Quite possibly,believes Christopher Wills of the University of California. Has the"Flores Human"even shown the ability oflanguage?"I find it difficult to imagine that people could make tools,use fire,and kill large animals without fairly advanced communication,"Wills says.Did"Flores Human"possess the basic components of humanculture--such as the burying of the dead with ceremony?Emiliano Bruner of theItalian Institute points out that Indonesia′s hot,wet environment is bad forfossilization.It is reasonable to assume,he says,that the 18,000-year-oldbones of the most complete Flores woman were well-preserved because she wasburied with special care. According to the passage,"Flores Human"__
A、lived a partly human life
B、was a branch of Homo sapiens
C、used tools before Homo sapiens arrived
D、had a brain as large as a commonchimp's
【正确答案】：C
【题目解析】：根据文章描述，“Flores Human”生活在印尼弗洛里斯岛上，时间可追溯到18000年前，且身高只有三英尺，脑容量比平均黑猩猩还小。然而，他们似乎制造了工具，一起寻找食物并烹饪，甚至可能以某种仪式埋葬死者。这表明他们过着完全的人类生活，因此选项A不正确。 文章明确指出，“Flores Human”被怀疑是直立人（Homo erectus）的一个矮化分支，因此它不是智人（Homo sapiens）的一个分支，所以选项B不正确。 文章提到，在智人到达岛屿之前，这些工具就已经存在了。由于智人被认为是在大约4000年前才到达这个岛屿的，而最古老的工具是在9400年前制造的，因此这些工具不可能是智人制作的。如果这种矮小的人类制造了这些工具，那么他们的大脑内部结构必须比黑猩猩的更像我们的，尽管它只有我们脑容量的三分之一。这支持了选项C，即“Flores Human”在智人到达之前就已经使用了工具。 关于选项D，文章明确指出，“Flores Human”的脑容量比平均黑猩猩还小，因此它的脑容量不可能像普通黑猩猩那么大，所以选项D不正确。 综上所述，正确答案是C，即“Flores Human”在智人到达之前就已经使用了工具。