Read the passage below carefully and answer the question that follows.
For centuries, scholarship on pre-colonial West African urbanism focused primarily on administrative centers as transient settlement clusters rather than enduring architectural achievements. Recent geo-archaeological surveys of the ancient earthworks of Benin, however, have fundamentally revised this perspective. Spanning thousands of kilometers in a complex network of banks and ditches, these ramparts represented not merely defensive perimeters constructed in response to external military threats, as early colonial chroniclers posited, but a sophisticated, long-term system of land management and territorial boundary delineation. The labor allocation required for their continuous maintenance reflects a centralized yet highly coordinated agrarian economy capable of mobilizing massive communal resources across generations. By integrating soil micro-stratigraphy with oral traditions, contemporary historians now demonstrate that the earthworks primarily served to regulate agricultural zoning and resource distribution among interconnected rural communities. Consequently, viewing the Benin walls through a purely militaristic lens obscures their primary function as an unprecedented monument to civil engineering, socio-spatial organization, and sustainable territorial governance.
Which of the following best expresses the central thesis of the passage?
- The ancient Benin earthworks functioned primarily as an advanced system of territorial governance and socio-spatial organization rather than mere military defenses.Cevap
- BThe continuous upkeep of the Benin ramparts required a centralized agrarian economy that mobilized communal resources across generations.
- CEarly colonial chroniclers accurately documented that the Benin earthworks were built exclusively to counter external military invasion.
- DSoil micro-stratigraphy and oral traditions prove that pre-colonial West African societies lacked organized urban planning prior to the Benin earthworks.