1.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, arc

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1. 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.

The argument claims that woven baskets believed to be typical from Palean people, which can be distinguish by its unique pattern, were not genuine from this village. Some of those baskets were found in Lithos, a vicinity village across the Brim River, and the author states that those were not made by Palean people because it was impossible for them to cross the river due to fact that any trace of boats built by Paleans had been found. Therefore the so-called Pallean baskets were not only made by Palean people. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that the Brim River, which is nowadays very deep and broad, was the same in Paleans time. The assumptions is unwarranted due to the lack of proves that the river had not change its shape, deep or course since then. Probably, the river does not remain the same at it was when Paleans live there and, therefore, argument would be undermine if any prove that river were shallower is found. In order to strengthen the argument, the author should refer any research that proves that the river was deep and broad in Paleans time.

Secondly, the argument claims that, as the archeologist did not found any boat, this means that Paleans did not build boats. It is possible that boats built by Paleans people were eroded by time and water and, therefore, any trace of those remains. Until any unanswerable prove that Paleans did not built boats where found the argument will not make sense at all. Despite the fact that any Palean boat where found, the argument should be strength by referring to the lack of tools found useful to build them.

Moreover, the argument assumes that the baskets only could be transported by Palean people. Even if the river were the same as today, it was possible that people from other villages, which had developed canoes or boats, could cross the river and went back with those baskets. If any evidence of boats is found in the nearer villages the argument became inconsistent. Therefore, in order to strength the argument, the writer should state if there exists boats in any other culture of the surroundings.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts stated before such as the depth of the river in Paleans time, the lack of tools for building boats or the existence of boats in the vicinity villages.

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No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.585 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.735 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.37 2.4
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Avg. Sentence Length: 23.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.109 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.383 0.35
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Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
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