Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palean and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people.

Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palean and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a “Palean” basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

With some new pieces of evidence majorly concerning the recent discovery of a particular kind of Palean baskets at another village Lithos and the absence of Palean boats for reaching Lithos across the turbulent Brim River, the author has concluded that the seemingly Palean baskets were not Palean solely. But this argument is not strong enough in reasoning, as some of its assumptions have been illogical or incomplete and needing further analyses, which would be discussed in the following paragraphs.

First of all, as suggested in the passage, the Palean baskets with a series of distinctive patterns were confirmed by the fact that the only place to find them is close to the Palean village. The author has assumed this premise to be correct, however, neglecting the possibilities that the archeologists might have misidentified the so-called special features of that type of basket and thus missed or had not unearthed yet the baskets in other places with the similar origin. Therefore, the former argument that those baskets were made exclusively by Palean people is not entirely trustworthy. If more information about the relics found in that region has been given, the identity of the “Palean baskets” may be less ambiguous and the first presumption on which the others are based on would be more accurate.

Also, a great misconception occurs relating to finding alike baskets at the site of Lithos. The author thought that without Palean boats, the Palean baskets could not be brought to Lithos due to the unbridgeable River Brim in between. Nevertheless, it might be unnecessary for the baskets to be carried by human, instead, a huge storm might have blown a few baskets to the opposite side of the river. Or if Palean men have bring the baskets as gifts or goods for bartering to the other village, at that time the river might be passable in a particularly dry season or be frozen completely due to coldness. Consequently, it would oversimplify the whole question to conclude that villagers in Lithos had created these baskets only due to not seeing Palean boats around in vicinity.

Besides, the result of finding should be treated with more meticulous speculation. What if the archeologists and relevant researchers have not yet discovered all the traces of facts around the villages? Although no Palean boats were not found, there might have been other transporting tools belonging to people in Lithos. Further, the author should not simply suppose the boats as non-existent since it is likely that the boats remains were no longer unidentifiable resulted from the corrosion by routine weathering or natural disasters as time elapsed. As a result, it would be irresponsible to pronounce the boats’ absence according to such little finding.

With these discontinuities in logic as mentioned above, the reasonings of the author are not convincing at all. It thus should not be conclusive that the so-called Palean baskets were also made in places like Lithos. Many more researches should been done and other information would be needed, in order to make a more scrupulous and persuasive argument. (510 words)