Question

Passage A
For decades, the standard archaeological model of the Neolithic Revolution posited a strict, unvarying chronological progression: the domestication of plants and animals led to reliable food surpluses, which in turn allowed for the establishment of sedentary populations, the rise of complex social hierarchies, and ultimately, the capacity for the construction of monumental architecture. However, recent extensive excavations at sites in the Fertile Crescent utterly upend this long-standing paradigm. These massive stone circles, featuring intricately carved pillars weighing several tons, were unequivocally constructed by hunter-gatherer societies centuries before the earliest evidence of agriculture. This startling revelation suggests that the human drive to congregate for communal, ritualistic purposes was the actual catalyst for agricultural development. To provision and sustain the large, temporary labor forces required to carve, transport, and erect such enormous megaliths over extended periods, these early societies needed more concentrated and reliable food sources than opportunistic foraging could provide. Consequently, they began deliberately cultivating wild stands of einkorn wheat and barley. In this revised archaeological framework, agriculture was not the foundational prerequisite for social complexity and monumental building; rather, it was a secondary, albeit crucial, adaptation—an economic necessity born directly out of the logistical demands of complex, pre-existing socio-religious practices.

Passage B
The discovery of intricately carved monumental stone complexes dating to the pre-agricultural era has profound and lasting implications for our understanding of the social dynamics of early human societies. Traditionally, anthropologists assumed that only agrarian societies, benefiting from sedentary lifestyles and securely stored food surpluses, possessed the necessary organizational capacity, specialized labor, and demographic scale to undertake massive collective building projects. Yet, the undeniable existence of these early megalithic sites demonstrates that intricate social organization and cooperative labor can emerge entirely independently of farming. The builders of these sites thrived in ecological zones so exceptionally rich in wild game and harvestable wild grains that they could easily support large-scale, coordinated architectural endeavors without ever needing to domesticate crops or alter their fundamental subsistence strategy. When full-scale agriculture finally did emerge millennia later in these specific regions, it was almost certainly not driven by the ongoing nutritional demands of monument construction, as some contemporary revisionist theorists have eagerly speculated. Instead, it was most likely triggered by severe, localized climatic shifts—such as the sudden cooling of the Younger Dryas—that drastically reduced the natural availability of wild resources. This ecological crisis forced previously prosperous foraging populations to actively manage and domesticate their food supply to avoid starvation. Thus, these ancient monuments stand primarily as enduring evidence that hunter-gatherer societies were highly sophisticated and capable of extraordinary collective feats well before harsh environmental pressures inevitably necessitated the difficult transition to an agrarian economy.

Which of the following most accurately states the primary purpose of both passages?