Perkins: According to an article I read, the woolly mammoth's extinction in North America coincided with a migration of humans...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Perkins: According to an article I read, the woolly mammoth's extinction in North America coincided with a migration of humans onto the continent 12,000 years ago, and stone spearheads from this period indicate that these people were hunters. But the author's contention that being hunted by humans contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction is surely wrong since, as paleontologists know, no spearheads have ever been found among the many mammoth bones that have been unearthed.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest reason for discounting the evidence Perkins cites in arguing against the contention that being hunted by humans contributed to the North American extinction of woolly mammoths?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| According to an article I read, the woolly mammoth's extinction in North America coincided with a migration of humans onto the continent 12,000 years ago |
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| and stone spearheads from this period indicate that these people were hunters |
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| But the author's contention that being hunted by humans contributed to the woolly mammoth's extinction is surely wrong |
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| since, as paleontologists know, no spearheads have ever been found among the many mammoth bones that have been unearthed |
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Argument Flow:
Perkins starts by presenting the article's evidence (human migration timing + hunting tools), then directly challenges the article's conclusion about human hunting causing extinction, and finally supports his disagreement with paleontological evidence about the absence of spearheads at mammoth fossil sites.
Main Conclusion:
The article author is wrong to claim that human hunting contributed to woolly mammoth extinction in North America.
Logical Structure:
Perkins uses the absence of spearheads at mammoth fossil sites as evidence that humans didn't hunt mammoths, which he believes proves the article's hunting theory is incorrect. His logic: If humans hunted mammoths, we should find spearheads with mammoth bones, but since we don't find any spearheads, humans probably didn't hunt mammoths.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Weaken - We need to find information that reduces our belief in Perkins' conclusion that human hunting did NOT contribute to mammoth extinction
Precision of Claims
Perkins makes a specific claim about evidence - that NO spearheads have EVER been found among mammoth bones, and uses this as definitive proof against the hunting theory
Strategy
Look for scenarios that either explain why we wouldn't expect to find spearheads with mammoth bones even if hunting occurred, or that show Perkins' evidence doesn't actually prove what he thinks it proves. We want to show that the absence of spearheads doesn't necessarily mean no hunting happened
This tells us that mammoth fossil sites rarely contain bones of other mammals. However, this doesn't address why spearheads aren't found with mammoth bones specifically. Even if other animal bones are rare at these sites, we'd still expect to find spearheads if humans hunted mammoths there. This doesn't weaken Perkins' evidence or provide an alternative explanation for the missing spearheads.
This actually strengthens Perkins' argument rather than weakening it. If stone spearheads wouldn't have disintegrated over 12,000 years, then we really should find them at mammoth sites if hunting occurred. This makes the absence of spearheads even more significant evidence that hunting didn't happen, which supports Perkins' conclusion.
While this suggests humans needed meat to survive (potentially including mammoth meat), it doesn't explain why we don't find spearheads at mammoth fossil sites. The nutritional argument doesn't address Perkins' specific evidence about the absence of spearheads, so it doesn't effectively counter his reasoning.
Cave paintings showing mammoths might suggest humans were familiar with these animals, but this is quite weak evidence for hunting. More importantly, it doesn't explain the absence of spearheads at mammoth fossil sites, which is the core of Perkins' argument. Depicting animals in art doesn't necessarily mean hunting them.
This directly undermines Perkins' key assumption. Perkins believes that if hunting occurred, we should find spearheads with mammoth bones. But if spearheads required great effort to make, hunters would naturally retrieve them after a kill rather than leaving them behind. This provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for why we don't find spearheads at mammoth fossil sites, even if extensive hunting did occur. This severely weakens Perkins' evidence against the hunting theory.