full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Louise Leakey: A dig for humanity's origins

Unscramble the Blue Letters

When we find a fossil, we mark it. Today, we've got great technology: we have GPS. We mark it with a GPS fix, and we also take a digital photograph of the specimen, so we could essentially put it back on the surface, exactly where we found it. And we can bring all this information into big GIS pagakecs, today. When we then find something very iantrpomt, like the bones of a huamn ancestor, we begin to excavate it eemlrexty cllruaefy and slowly, using dental picks and fine paintbrushes. And all the sediment is then put through these snrcees, and where we go again through it very carefully, looking for small bone fragments, and it's then washed.

Open Cloze

When we find a fossil, we mark it. Today, we've got great technology: we have GPS. We mark it with a GPS fix, and we also take a digital photograph of the specimen, so we could essentially put it back on the surface, exactly where we found it. And we can bring all this information into big GIS ________, today. When we then find something very _________, like the bones of a _____ ancestor, we begin to excavate it _________ _________ and slowly, using dental picks and fine paintbrushes. And all the sediment is then put through these _______, and where we go again through it very carefully, looking for small bone fragments, and it's then washed.

Solution

  1. carefully
  2. important
  3. packages
  4. extremely
  5. human
  6. screens

Original Text

When we find a fossil, we mark it. Today, we've got great technology: we have GPS. We mark it with a GPS fix, and we also take a digital photograph of the specimen, so we could essentially put it back on the surface, exactly where we found it. And we can bring all this information into big GIS packages, today. When we then find something very important, like the bones of a human ancestor, we begin to excavate it extremely carefully and slowly, using dental picks and fine paintbrushes. And all the sediment is then put through these screens, and where we go again through it very carefully, looking for small bone fragments, and it's then washed.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
million years 6
homo erectus 6
planet earth 5
human ancestors 4
lake turkana 3
world today 2
great apes 2
common future 2
rift valley 2
rapidly buried 2
fossil sites 2
human ancestor 2
left africa 2
extraordinary numbers 2

Important Words

  1. ancestor
  2. big
  3. bone
  4. bones
  5. bring
  6. carefully
  7. dental
  8. digital
  9. essentially
  10. excavate
  11. extremely
  12. find
  13. fine
  14. fix
  15. fossil
  16. fragments
  17. gis
  18. gps
  19. great
  20. human
  21. important
  22. information
  23. mark
  24. packages
  25. paintbrushes
  26. photograph
  27. picks
  28. put
  29. screens
  30. sediment
  31. slowly
  32. small
  33. specimen
  34. surface
  35. today
  36. washed