In 1957 a European silver coin dating to the eleventh century was discovered at a Native American archaeological site in the state of Maine in the United States. Many people believed the coin had been originally brought to North America by European explorers known as the Norse, who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and came into contact with Native Americans almost a thousand years ago.
However, some archaeologists believe that the coin is not a genuine piece of historical evidence but a historical fake: they think that the coin was placed at the site recently by someone who wanted to mislead the public. There are three main reasons why some archaeologists believe that the coin is not genuine historical evidence.
Great Distance from Norse Settlements
First, the Native American site in Maine where the coin was discovered is located very far from other sites documenting a Norse presence in North America. Remains of Norse settlements have been discovered in far eastern Canada. The distance between the Maine site and the Norse settlements in Canada is more than a thousand kilometers, suggesting the coin has no real connection with the settlements.
No Other Coins Found
A second problem is that no other coins have been found at the Canadian sites that were inhabited by the Norse. This suggests that the Norse did not bring any silver coins with them to their North American settlements.
No Use for European Coins
Third, the Norse who traveled to North America would have understood that silver coins would most likely be useless to them. Silver coins may have been in wide use in Europe at the time, but the Norse, as experienced explorers, would have known that native North Americans did not recognize silver coins as money.
The reading and lecture are about the whether Norse brought silver coins from the Europe to the North America. In the passage, the author states three explanations which supports the idea that coins are historically bogus objects, which means someone placed it in relatively modern time. The lecturer is the opinion of these interpretations are faulty.
First, in the passage, it is stated that the position from which coin was found is distant from the Norse settlements. Therefore, there was no relation between the coin and Norse, explorers. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. She claims that other stuffs that was far from Norse settlements were found as well. Moreover, the dwellers of these settlements may traveled to the other settlements within the continent in order to obtain objects, and left the coin in a distant area.
Secondly, the author posits that there were no other coin was revealed, and Norse people did not bring the coin. Nonetheless, the lecturer refutes this idea by mentioning that Norse may took the plenty of coins from Europe and bring to North America. Afterwards, they traveled back to Europe with all the coins but only one coin. For this reason, only one coin was found in 1957 although there were magnitude of coins before.
Finally, the author claims that silver coin was not expedient, and bringing the coin has no sensible purpose for Norse. Thereby, they did not relocate the coin to their settlements. The lecturer, however, states the silver coin is attractive and brand-new for the indigenous folks of the North America. Hence, Norse can trade the coin with necklace or other jewelries thanks to its relatively exquisite and pleasant view.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, therefore, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 10.4613686534 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 5.04856512141 59% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 7.30242825607 137% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1430.0 1373.03311258 104% => OK
No of words: 281.0 270.72406181 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08896797153 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.09427095027 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53263297966 2.5805825403 98% => OK
Unique words: 138.0 145.348785872 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.491103202847 0.540411800872 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 430.2 419.366225166 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.51434878587 198% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 13.0662251656 122% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.9002484769 49.2860985944 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.375 110.228320801 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.5625 21.698381199 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.625 7.06452816374 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 4.45695364238 135% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.243319963728 0.272083759551 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0929965429728 0.0996497079465 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0585034201941 0.0662205650399 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166802587592 0.162205337803 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0379839993698 0.0443174109184 86% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 13.3589403974 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 53.8541721854 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 11.0289183223 79% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.95 12.2367328918 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.42419426049 95% => OK
difficult_words: 63.0 63.6247240618 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 10.7273730684 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.