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閱讀理解
A structure thought to be the world's oldest building has been discovered under the sea off the coast of Japan, and could be evidence of a previously unknown Stone Age civilization．
The monument dates back to at least 8,000 BC; the oldest pyramid in Egypt was constructed more than 5,000 years later．
The structure was first discovered under 75 feet of water by divers in 2000, and was believed to be a natural phenomenon．
Professor Masaki Kimura, the first to study the site, has concluded that the structure is man-made．"The object was not formed naturally．If that had been the case, we would have found pieces through erosion(腐蝕)around the site, but there is nothing there," he says．
The discovery of a road surrounding the building is further evidence that the structure was made by humans, along with small underwater stone tombs nearby．
Kimura says it is too early to know who built it or its purpose．"It might be an ancient religious shrine(神社), possibly celebrating an ancient god．And it could be evidence of a new culture, since there are no records of a people intelligent enough to have built such a monument 10,000 years ago; it could only have been done by people with a high degree of technology, probably coming from the Asian continent, where the oldest civilizations originated．"
Teruaki Ishii, a professor at Tokyo University, said the structure could be natural, but that part of it may have been made by humans．
The first signs of civilization in Japan date back to around 9,000 BC, but nothing in the archeological record suggests the presence of a culture advanced enough to have built such a structure．
Jim Mower, an archeologist at University College Lon-don, says, "If it's proved that the site is as old as 10,000 years and is man-made, then it's going to change an awful lot of the previous thinking on southeast Asian history．It would put the people who made the monument on equal terms with the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia(An an-cient region of southwest Asia)．"
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