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  3. Despite hypotheses ranging from armed conflict to climate change, the abandonment of more than 600 Pueblo cliff dwellings in Mes

Despite hypotheses ranging from armed conflict to climate change, the abandonment of more than 600 Pueblo cliff dwellings in Mes

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问题 Despite hypotheses ranging from armed conflict to climate change, the abandonment of more than 600 Pueblo cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde by a.d. 1300 still puzzles archaeologists. Researchers analyzing refuse from one Pueblo community found remains of maize—a Pueblo crop—in 44 percent of samples from years when the community flourished, but in only 10 percent of samples from years near the time of depopulation, while the remains of wild plants increased significantly.
Bones found in the samples showed that the consumption of domesticated turkeys—which were fed maize—decreased from 55 to 14 percent, while there was a marked increase in wild-animal bones. These data suggest that near the end of the site’s occupation, villagers experienced substantial food shortages and adopted hunting-and-gathering strategies to compensate for crop failure.
The research described in the passage most clearly supports which of the following claims about the abandonment of Mesa Verde?
选项 A、It likely resulted from factors affecting crop viability.
B、It was more extensive than had previously been documented.
C、It may have been hastened by the abundance of wild animals in the area.
D、It has been misdated by previous archaeological research.
E、It happened more rapidly in certain Pueblo communities than in others.
答案A
解析 The research strongly suggests that when the Pueblo community was flourishing, maize and maize-fed turkey formed a substantial part of the inhabitants’ diet, but that just before the abandonment of Mesa Verde, maize had become a much scarcer commodity. This decline in what had been a dietary mainstay supports the claim that the villagers were experiencing difficulty growing crops. Thus Choice A is correct. Nothing in the passage suggests that the extent or date of the abandonment should be revised(Choices B and D), nor that the rate of the abandonment was affected by wild animals or varied from one community to another(Choices C and E).
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