Free Practice Question
RC · Reading Comprehension
705-805
Short Passage - Science
Reading Passage
Native American women of the Greater American Southwest understood ceramic technology long before they began manufacturing ceramic containers. Ceramic containers appeared over a millennium after the introduction of agriculture among southwestern Native American groups that had previously relied solely upon foraging, and approximately eight hundred years after the archaeological record indicates ceramic figurines first appeared in the region. To explain this lag, anthropologist James Brown proposed that the manufacture of ceramic containers began as these groups became increasingly sedentary and more reliant upon agriculture and developed greater need for storage containers. He argued further that since pottery making fit easily into women's schedules, the labor of making containers had negligible costs. Subsequent research has shown that pottery making exacerbated the scheduling problems of women, whose child-care responsibilities, foraging activities, and other contributions to subsistence were already greater than during the preceramic period. Other evidence, however, does seem to support Brown's argument that increased need for containers was important to the inception of pottery making. Pottery containers provided a means of storing and cooking food that enhanced the nutritional yield of a given crop. As southwestern populations became more reliant on agriculture for subsistence, they had to increase their crops' nutritional yield, since low population densities impeded expansion of field systems.
The author of the passage mentions low densities among southwestern Native American populations most likely in order to
Answer Choices
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suggest why Native Americans did not need to expand their field systems
B
imply that nutritional yields from crops did not need to be increased
C
provide evidence to support one part of Brown's argument about the origin of ceramic containers
D
account for the fact that southwestern Native American populations gradually became more sedentary
E
give an example of a factor that has been cited as accounting for the lag in vessel manufacture by southwestern Native Americans
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Difficulty
705-805
Type
RC
Category