Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archa

Essay topics:

Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

With the information provided, the assumptions leading to the conclusion drawn in this argument remain unfounded. The author uses the evidence that the Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found, which concludes so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean .However, the author makes a number of unproved assumptions that hamper a reader's ability to believe the author conclusion. If author were to provide more evidence to support the assumptions, the argument would be much more effective.

The primary assumption underlying the author's conclusion is about brim river width and depth. At present time Brim River is very deep and broad so author assumes that during ancient time also the river was very deep and broad. But it may not be true, it might be possible that during ancient time there was no river at all and geological changes cause this to happen. It is also possible that during that time temperature of the river region was below freezing point and river water was in the form of ice. To reinforce the argument author should have discussed about geological and climatic situation of that place during ancient time.

Moreover, the author assumes that archaeologist have not found any boats in that region so ancient paleans had not used boat to cross brim river. But it might be also true that they have used boat made of very light wood and now it has fully deteriorated and we don’t have superior technology that can detect completely deteriorated materials. So instead of only boats archaeologist should have also looked for boat making tools that information can be helpful to conclude they have used boats or not.

The author further assumes that woven baskets can only be transported by humans from palean to lithos.But it might be also true that due to river flood or some other natural disasters it gets transported to lithos. So, to counter these questions authors should have discussed about the history of flood and natural disasters of brim river region.

To sum up, The author fails to substantiate its claim that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean , because he has not given sufficient evidence to support his argument. He should have discussed about survey data, climatic condition of ancient time, detail archaeologists report etc to substantiate his claim.

Votes
Average: 8.3 (10 votes)
This essay topic by users
Post date Users Rates Link to Content
2013-10-28 Ly Phuong Thao 60 view
2013-10-28 Ly Phuong Thao 40 view
2013-10-26 hrithiksrf57 45 view
2013-09-25 wasainika17 60 view
2013-09-10 janet 53 view
Essay Categories
Essays by user fiddo :

Comments

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 402 350
No. of Characters: 1969 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.478 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.898 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.506 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.19 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.636 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.159 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5