PrepTest C2, Section 2, Question 17

Difficulty: 
Passage
Game

Archaeologists excavating a Neanderthal campsite found discarded gazelle teeth there whose coloration indicated that gazelles had been hunted throughout the year. The archaeologists concluded that the Neanderthals had inhabited the campsite year-round and thus were not nomadic. In contrast, the archaeologists cite a neighboring campsite of nomadic Cro-Magnons that contained teeth from gazelles all killed during the same season.

Archaeologists excavating a Neanderthal campsite found discarded gazelle teeth there whose coloration indicated that gazelles had been hunted throughout the year. The archaeologists concluded that the Neanderthals had inhabited the campsite year-round and thus were not nomadic. In contrast, the archaeologists cite a neighboring campsite of nomadic Cro-Magnons that contained teeth from gazelles all killed during the same season.

Archaeologists excavating a Neanderthal campsite found discarded gazelle teeth there whose coloration indicated that gazelles had been hunted throughout the year. The archaeologists concluded that the Neanderthals had inhabited the campsite year-round and thus were not nomadic. In contrast, the archaeologists cite a neighboring campsite of nomadic Cro-Magnons that contained teeth from gazelles all killed during the same season.

Archaeologists excavating a Neanderthal campsite found discarded gazelle teeth there whose coloration indicated that gazelles had been hunted throughout the year. The archaeologists concluded that the Neanderthals had inhabited the campsite year-round and thus were not nomadic. In contrast, the archaeologists cite a neighboring campsite of nomadic Cro-Magnons that contained teeth from gazelles all killed during the same season.

Question
17

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the archaeologists' reasoning?

Neanderthals hunted a wide variety of both migratory and nonmigratory animals.

Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals sometimes exchanged tools.

Neanderthals saved gazelle teeth for use in religious rituals and later discarded them.

Cro-Magnons usually followed the migrations of the animals they hunted.

Gazelles inhabited the area around the campsites year-round.

C
Raise Hand   ✋

Explanations

Nomadic Neanderthals

This is a tough one. We're told a Neanderthal encampment was discovered that contained some discarded gazelle teeth. Presumably, these discarded teeth were from gazelles being hunted by these Neanderthals, and the teeth's coloration suggests that the hunting was happening year-round. From this, the archaeologists who discover the site claim the Neanderthals weren't nomadic. The last sentence in the passage is a bit of a red herring. It gives a counter point: that a Cro-Magnon encampment nearby had similar gazelle teeth, but they were all from the same season, as one might expect from the nomadic Cro-Magnon.

We're asked to weaken the archaeologist's argument. In other words, we need to drive a wedge between the gazelle teeth found in the Neanderthal encampment and the conclusion that the Neanderthals weren't nomadic. Anything that makes it more likely that the Neanderthals were nomadic would work. And if it increases those chances while addressing the gazelle teeth in a meaningful way, all the better.

This will be tough to predict, so let's take a look.

A

Nah, this isn't it. I'm sure the Neanderthals did hunt this mix of game, but this neither increases the likelihood that they were nomadic nor shows why the teeth don't suggest they were nomadic.

B

No, this isn't it either. It's totally possible that these groups exchanged tools. But the nomadic Cro-Magnons might have made such trades as they passed by a non-nomadic Neanderthal encampment. This doesn't weaken the argument.

C

Ah, yes! This is the answer. This explains why a nomadic group of Neanderthals might have had a mix of gazelle teeth that spanned a year's time—they were keeping them for a specific purpose and this site just so happened to be the one where all of them were discarded. If this is true, we could have nomadic Neanderthals bringing a bunch of teeth to one of potentially many encampments along a journey and this is simply the encampment where they ditched the teeth.

D

Nope. Sort of like A, I'm sure there's a grain of truth here, but it doesn't affect the likelihood that these Neanderthals in question were nomadic.

E

Nah. This is a plausible strengthener. If the gazelles were abundant in the area, it might make sense that a once-nomadic group of Neanderthals settled down where hunting was easier.

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