Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S2 · Q5 Archaeologist: The earliest evidence

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Archaeologist: The earliest evidence of controlled fire use in Europe dates to just 400,000 years ago.

Conclusion

It looks less likely that .

i.e. it looks more like

Evidence

The earliest evidence of fire mastery (controlled fire use) in Europe is about 400,000 years ago.

Evaluate

There's a big New Term in the conclusion "human migration to Europe". The author must be assuming something about "human migration to Europe".

Since she thinks saying makes it more likely that , she must be assuming that humans migrated to Europe more than 400k years ago.

Goal

Look for something spelling out that missing connection of how the Premise about fire is even relevant to the claim about "human migration to Europe" in the Conclusion.

5.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

  1. The humans who first mastered

    Out of Scope: used for cooking

    This argument certainly doesn't delve into any specifics about how humans who mastered fire would have used fire, so the author hasn't committed herself to any opinions on how humans initially used fire. Because of the context of talking about whether Europe would be too cold for humans, if they didn't have fire, there is definitely a hint at the idea that humans would use fire for heat. But if they also used it for cooking, that wouldn't hurt the author's argument, so she doesn't need to assume they didn't use if for cooking.

    2% picked this

  2. The climate in Europe was

    Irrelevant Comparison

    This argument doesn't in any way care about how modern Europe's climate compares to prehistoric Europe's climate.

    2% picked this

  3. Prior to 400,000 years ago,

    Out of Scope: unmastered fires

    This argument is about whether or not humans had mastered fire before they migrated to Europe. This answer choice is ruminating about whether, prior to mastering fires, humans might come across a naturally occurring fire and take advantage of that. Whether they did or didn't would change the argument at all.

    3% picked this

  4. Humans would not have mastered

    Too Strong

    The author isn't ever presenting this extreme idea that "the only reason fire eventually got mastered was for the sake of heat in a cold climate". In fact, since the author is suggesting that humans may have migrated to the cold climate of Europe prior to mastering fire, she might be loosening the connection between "mastering fire" and "need for heat in a cold climate".

    13% picked this

  5. Correct

    There were humans inhabiting Europe

    Why this is right

    Even though this is not how we judge Necessary Assumption answer choices, first consider how this works for the author's logic, if true -- If humans inhabited Europe prior to 400k years ago, but the earliest evidence of mastery of fire is just 400k years ago, then that suggests that mastery of fire was a prerequisite of migrating there. Suppose the author is out there saying her conclusion, "it seems like maybe humans were able to migrate to Europe before they had ever mastered fire, since the earliest fires were 400k years ago." If we negated this answer choice, we could object, "right, but there were no humans in Europe prior to 400k years ago ... so that looks like fire really was something needed in order to migrate to Europe." So we can understand this correct answer either as - an idea the author was clearly thinking, for her argument to make any sense or - an idea that, if negated, would hurt the argument

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    80% picked this

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