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 article and the lecture both deal with whether the silver coin discovered in Maine was brought to North America by Norse. Whilst the author claims that the coin is not a genuine historical evidence for three reasons, the lecture contradicts his arguments respectively.
First, the author states that the discovery location of the coin is far away from Norse habitats. However, the professor argues that many other objects owned by Norse are found far away from their settlements. Furthermore, she adds that Native Americans used to travel in great distance, and the coin might be brought to Maine by them.
Second, according to the reading passage, Norse did not bring any silver coins with them as no other coins have been discovered at their settlements. In contrast, the lecturer questions this argument by saying that Norse usually did not have permanent habitats, they might bring all the coins with them to North America and take them back to Europe.
Last but not least, the writer points out that coins were useless in North America at the time they arrived. On the other hand, the speaker maintains that Native Americans might not consider coins as money but attracted by the beauty of the coins, and make necklaces or other jewelries.
As we can see, the author and the lecturer hold very different views about the silver coin discovered in Maine.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, however, if, second, so, in contrast, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 10.4613686534 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 5.04856512141 79% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 22.412803532 85% => OK
Preposition: 28.0 30.3222958057 92% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 5.01324503311 80% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1146.0 1373.03311258 83% => OK
No of words: 230.0 270.72406181 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.98260869565 5.08290768461 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.89432290496 4.04702891845 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.40099223345 2.5805825403 93% => OK
Unique words: 130.0 145.348785872 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.565217391304 0.540411800872 105% => OK
syllable_count: 342.0 419.366225166 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 13.0662251656 77% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 23.0 21.2450331126 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.1473915441 49.2860985944 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.6 110.228320801 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0 21.698381199 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 7.06452816374 113% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.271492365476 0.272083759551 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112654376377 0.0996497079465 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0616506457193 0.0662205650399 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145457454912 0.162205337803 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0284038181638 0.0443174109184 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 13.3589403974 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 53.8541721854 105% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.9 12.2367328918 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.42419426049 93% => OK
difficult_words: 45.0 63.6247240618 71% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 10.498013245 107% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 Out of 30
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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.