Reading Comprehension

PT147 · S2 · P3 · Q18 Mesolithic Woodland Clearings

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It is generally accepted that woodland clearings were utilized by Mesolithic human populations (populations in Europe roughly 7,000 to 12,000 years ago) for food procurement.

Topic

Mesolithic woodland clearings: reassessing why ancient humans created and used them

Framework

Challenge Position

Main Point

While the standard explanation for prehistoric woodland clearings is that they were created or used by Mesolithic populations for economic reasons (mainly hunting and food procurement), the archaeological evidence for this is weak, and an alternative explanation—that clearings were social spaces associated with paths created out of fear of the wilderness—deserves more consideration. (The key "Most Valuable Sentence" summarizing the main point appears near the end: )

P1: The Economic (Hunting) Model and Its Weak Evidence

It's generally thought that Mesolithic people used woodland clearings for hunting/gathering, but there's little hard archaeological evidence directly linking clearings with economic activities.

P2: Ethnographic Support—and Its Limits

Most support for the "resource-procurement" (economic) model comes from studying recent cultures, not from direct evidence, and some ethnographic data points to alternative, noneconomic uses for clearings.

P3: Introducing the "Fear of Wilderness" Argument

Some theorists argue that fear of wild, wooded places has always shaped human behavior—not just in modern times—and if we apply this idea to Mesolithic people, it could change our view of why they cared about clearings.

18.

The author suggests that which one of the following may have been true of Mesolithic human populations?

  1. They were the first people

    Too Strong: first

    Nothing in this passage singles out these humans as the first to do anything. And the idea that these humans did anything intentional to increase grazing sounds more like "the common view" than like the author's view.

    2% picked this

  2. They were the first people

    Too Strong: first

    Nothing in this passage singles out these humans as the first to do anything.

    9% picked this

  3. They worshipped nature.

    Out of Scope: worshipped

    There's no discussion of their religion or spirituality. We have no idea whether they worshipped nature or made up some God to worship.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    They possessed a concept of

    Why this is right

    Sure, this is a necessary assumption of the author's main point. Her main point is that these woodland clearings aren't the result of humans deliberately clearing out trees so that there would be a good spot to lure grazing animals into an ambush. Instead, she thinks that these woodland clearings are the result of the fact that humans were afraid of the wilderness, and so they stuck to traveling along prescribed pathways, and the woodland clearings naturally formed as a result of being intersections between paths. In the 3rd paragraph, the author discusses Tuan's argument that "right up through the modern era, human behavior has been driven by fear of the wilderness", which the author then addresses by saying, "It is clear that such fears are also manifest in preliterate and nonurban societies. If we apply this insight to the Mesolithic era ... " So the author thinks that humans of the Mesolithic era also had this fear of the wilderness, and in order to have a fear of something, you have to possess the concept of that something.

    Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    87% picked this

  5. They had a complex economic

    Out of Scope: complex system

    The passage never talks about a complex economic system. Moreover, "the common view" is that woodland clearings had an economic purpose. The author's main point is that, "No, I don't think they had an economic purpose", so an answer talking about the Mesolithic economy is probably drifting towards the wrong point of view.

    1% picked this

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