The author's conclusion about woven baskets is based on the assumptions that are not very strong

Q: 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 unique to the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a 'Palean' basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the BrimRiver from Palea. The BrimRiver is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could only have crossed it by boat, but there is no evidence that the Paleans had boats. And boats capable of carrying groups of people and cargo were not developed until thousands of years after the Palean people disappeared. Moreover, Paleans would have had no need to cross the river ?the woods around Palea are full of nuts, berries, and small game. It follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not unique to Palea. Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument

Answer:

The author's conclusion that the woven baskets were not unique to the ancient Paliens is based on the assumptions that are not very strong and thus the conclusion supported is subject to change depending on the possibility of assumptions. The assumption that the deep broad Brim River was a deterrent to the Paliens to move to the other side of the prehistoric village does not take into account the possibility of the emergence of river much after the Paleans dissapeared. The other possibility is that the River could have originated several years before the Paleans and might have dried by that time so that Palens could easily travel across to the other area. Besides river , there could have been many other hindrances between the two regions , for example , a mountain or some valley which later changed to flat land.

Secondly, the appearance of a single basket in Lithos does not strong support the conclusion that the people of Lithos also wove those distinctive patterned baskets. The single basket could have been transported from Palean land to that region some years later by some other means of transport.

It is plausible that the basket might have been taken away by the river to the other side.
These likelihoods again weakens the conclusion by the author.

There could have been some alternate means of transport that Palends used to go across the river which again weakens the conclusion.Being self sufficient in terms of nuts , berries in does not confirm the fact that Paleans need not cross the river to go to the Lithos. They might have trade relations or they might have gone there for some other reason ,eg to travel to some other place.

Since the discovery of a single basket many years later proved to be denouncing the earlier accepted truth that woven baskets were unique to the Paleans, some progress in the further years may lead to discovery of boats or some other means of transport which will again contradict the presented conlusion and the author might like to revisit his statement.

Moreover, the discovery of a single basket ,in no way strengthens the conclusion that the Lithos used to weave those baskets. A few more number of baskets could have in some way supported the statement.

So , in a nutshell, combining all the loopholes in stating the conclusion of the argument, it can be said that there is a flaw in drawing the conclusion of the argument. The argument can be strengthened if it can be substantiated with sufficient assumptions which are valid.

Hi!
my suggestion: avoid redundancy of words and expound your opinion.

Thanks for the suggestion . but can you just grade me so that i know where i stand

- Archeologists are trained to spot the age of riverbeds, therefore they would have been able to tell if there were pre-existing water forms and how that may have affected the exchange of culture, traditions, and goods in a particular area. Your reasoning is not sound and is not the evidence of proper research.


- This is a reasonable deduction on your part.


- But the fact is that the only way to travel to and from, according to the archeologists is by boat. They did not have boats. So your argument is weak.


- Excellent point!


- This is true. But you need to improve your argument and provide evidence as well to prove that the analysis of the archeologists are wrong or flawed.

My overall grade for this essay, based upon my own observations that I used for my own grading rubic would be a 5. Due to the fact that you did not present enough evidence on your part to disprove the assumptions of the archeologists.

Thanks a lot. i will definitely try to improve upon it