1. The following passage is followed by 5 questions. After carefully reading the passage, select the most appropriate answer for each question related to the ACT Reading section.
Feel free to review the passage as many times as needed to make your choices.
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Debates persist regarding when the Americas were first peopled given conflicting evidence from paleoanthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. Initial colonization has traditionally been dated to around 13,000 years ago when the Clovis people inhabited the Americas, indicated by their distinctive lithic technology spreading rapidly across North America shortly after. However, excavations unearthed much older occupation sites that contravene the Clovis-First model of settlement.
Pre-Clovis sites discovered near the Pacific coast of North and South America dated over 15,000 years old contain unique artifact styles hinting at early coastal migration routes largely erased by sea level rise after the last glacial maximum. Similarly, anatomical analysis of human remains at Monte Verde, Chile radiocarbon dated to approximately 14,500 years ago demonstrate cultural and technological advances unmatched elsewhere in the Americas at that time.
Genetic studies further muddy the timeline, inferring an earlier founding population split from ancestors of modern Asians between 23,000-18,000 years ago based on Y-chromosomal diversity in indigenous Americans. While colonizers may have failed to establish long-term populations until after Clovis, the earliest pioneers’ traces are increasingly found through interdisciplinary syntheses. Linguistic reconstruction attempting to date when ancestralProto-Na-Dene branched from its Siberian relatives support pre-Clovis entry around 15,000 years ago as well.
Combined evidence implies a complex settlement process not readily reconciled with a single wave model. Probability models incorporating multiple lines of evidence now propose an initial coastal migration prior to 18,000 years ago with further migrations, rather than Clovis marking the initial peopling alone. Clarifying America’s deep prehistory requires continued open-minded integrative research.
- The primary topic examined in the passage is:
