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Question

Difficulty: HardStrengthen

Anthropologist: Dental calculus from adult human remains at a 3,500-year-old steppe settlement contains beta-lactoglobulin peptides specifically matching horse milk. Because the equine skeletal remains found at the site lack bit wear on their teeth, some researchers hypothesize that these horses were wild animals hunted solely for game meat rather than managed livestock. However, the presence of equine milk proteins in the adult dental plaque conclusively proves that this community had domesticated horses and was practicing pastoral dairying.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the anthropologist's argument?

  1. A
    Hunters in ancient steppe communities frequently ingested raw milk extracted from the carcasses of lactating wild mares killed during seasonal hunts.
  2. B
    No ancient pastoralist society that utilized horses for dairy production ever hunted wild equids for supplementary meat.
  3. The entrapment of detectable concentrations of whey proteins in human dental calculus requires repeated, routine consumption of dairy fluids over many years rather than sporadic ingestion.Answer
  4. D
    Bovine and ovine dairy proteins degrade at a significantly faster rate in fossilized dental calculus than equine whey proteins.
  5. E
    Horse skeletal remains discovered at the settlement represent a substantially higher proportion of the total faunal assemblage than the remains of any other animal.

Answer

The finding that detectable whey protein entrapment in human dental calculus requires repeated, routine consumption of dairy fluids over many years rather than sporadic ingestion.
The anthropologist infers that the steppe community domesticated horses and practiced dairying from the presence of horse milk whey proteins in adult human dental calculus, rejecting the skeptic's counterhypothesis that the horses were wild game hunted for meat. The underlying vulnerability is that hunters might have occasionally ingested milk from slaughtered wild nursing mares. Establishing that detectable whey protein entrapment in dental plaque requires repeated, long-term dairy consumption over many years rules out sporadic ingestion from hunted wild game, thereby substantially strengthening the conclusion that the population maintained live domestic herds for ongoing dairy exploitation.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Isolate the argument's core premises and conclusion.
The anthropologist concludes that the community domesticated horses for dairying based on the discovery of equine milk whey proteins in human dental calculus, despite the lack of bit wear on horse teeth.
Clarifying the inferential leap reveals the vulnerability in the author's reasoning.
2
Identify the primary competing hypothesis and underlying assumption.
Skeptics suggest the horses were merely wild game; the anthropologist assumes that finding milk proteins cannot be explained by opportunistically consuming milk from killed wild mares.
To strengthen an argument that attributes physical evidence to a specific behavior, one must rule out alternative mechanisms capable of generating that same evidence.
3
Evaluate the choices to find the statement that eliminates the rival hypothesis.
Demonstrating that whey protein entrapment requires chronic, multi-year dairy ingestion confirms that sporadic consumption from hunted wild carcasses could not have generated the observed dental evidence.
Eliminating the hunting counterexplanation directly supports the conclusion that the horses were managed livestock.

Key Concept

Strengthening an argument by eliminating a competing causal explanation
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