Reading Comprehension

PT147 · S2 · P3 · Q19 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.

19.

In the third paragraph, the author mentions Yi-Fu Tuan's argument primarily in order to

  1. render doubtful the hypothesis about

    Wrong Purpose

    The author isn't using Tuan to undermine the plausibility of the existing explanation for clearings. The author is using Tuan to bolster the plausibility of the alternate explanation for clearings she is about to propose.

    5% picked this

  2. exemplify the kind of argument

    Opposite

    The author isn't challenging Tuan's argument. She's using it to bolster her alternative explanation for clearings.

    2% picked this

  3. give credit to the scholar

    Out of Scope: developed the hypothesis

    Tuan doesn't have any hypothesis about why these woodland clearings were created (or at least none that we've heard about). Tuan is just there in the passage, establishing that humans have a long-running fear of the wilderness. The author takes Tuan's idea and then she develops the alternate hypothesis about clearings: If we apply this insight to the Mesolithic era ... this is implying that Tuan himself did not apply this insight to the Mesolithic era, but we could take his idea and apply it to our causal mystery.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    lay the groundwork for the

    Why this is right

    This looks like our prediction: to bolster the Alternate Explanation for the clearings that the author is offering. We also like that it has language reinforcing the "bookend" ideas. The ideas right before and right after the discussion of Tuan are saying - suggest a different vision of why clearings were created/used - our view of the purpose and use of woodland clearings may change The author is using Tuan to establish that humans fear the wilderness, so that she can then develop the alternate hypothesis that humans deliberately created clearings and used clearings because of that fear (not because of economic reasons of opportunistic hunting spaces).

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

    88% picked this

  5. point out the similarity between

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: Tuan's view about clearings Like (C), this is making it seem like Tuan had some opinion on the woodland clearings. We're never told that Tuan has any opinion on these. He is just a geographer who has argued that humans throughout time have feared the wilderness. The author takes that insight and then applies it to the topic of the woodland clearings, but we have no evidence that Tuan ever did so.

    2% picked this

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