Debate About the Earliest Calendar
Paragraph 1：Some researchers believe that we can trace the written calendar back more than 20,000 years to the last ice age. In particular, Alexander Marshack has interpreted cut marks found on bits of bone from central Africa and Paleolithic caves in France to be rudimentary forms of an early lunar calendar. The evidence lies in distinct clusters of cut marks on the bones — marks that could not have been by chance. The marks must have been made by using a sharp cutting tool or by twisting a pointed object to form a hole in the surface of the bones. According to Marshack, each mark represents a day and these marks are grouped in patterns of 14 or 15 days. This interval would correspond to the times between the first sighting of a crescent moon and the full moon, and the interval between a full moon and the beginning a new moon cycle.
1. Why does the position that “The marks must have been made by using a sharp cutting tool or by twisting a pointed object to form a hole in the surface of the bones” support Marshack’s hypothesis?
A. It implies that the marks on the bones were intentionally made rather than the result of a natural process of wear.
B. It proves that 20,000 years ago, people had already developed tools.
C. It suggests that the pattern of cut marks made by Paleolithic peoples in France may have originated in central Africa.
D. It confirms what other researchers have concluded about the origins of the marks.
2. According to paragraph 1, how does Marshack interpret the cut marks found on bones that he claims are lunar calendars?
A. He interprets each mark as representing a phase of the moon from crescent to full.
B. He interprets groups of marks as being representations, one mark per day, of half a lunar cycle.
C. He interprets the interval between individual marks as representing the time between the crescent and full moon or the time between the full moon and a new moon.
D. He interprets the marks as representations of the moon’s shape when first sighted each night during a lunar month.
Paragraph 2：According to Marshack, there would have been several motives for keeping a lunar record. A major portion of the lunar-phase cycle provides extended light for accomplishing many useful activities. Also, it helps to plan if one knows or can anticipate when additional daylight will come. Keeping track of lunar events would offer the Paleolithic inhabitants of western Europe a means of abstractly correlating what Marshack calls “time-factored” events — those that occur sequentially in a predictable manner — through a process that lends itself readily to measurement. These notations could represent the foundation of the associative process — the first step in the evolution of traditional writing, where a mark stands for a thing, in this case, one day. Though the best-known bone calendar stretches only two and a half months, an extended series of such records could have led early hunter-gatherers to deduce that the period from human conception to birth was nine moons; that after two moons, a particular supply of berries would dry up; or that after every 12 or 13 moons, all the nearby streams would swell to capacity.
3. According to paragraph 2, Marshack believes a lunar calendar would have allowed Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe to do all the following EXCEPT
A. keep track of the periods within the lunar cycle that will provide extended light
B. associate sequentially structured events with marks to provide an early form of measurement
C. record the dates of important events
D. take the first step toward writing
4. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
A. Although bones calendars can stretch as long as twelve or thirteen months, most, such as the best-known bone calendar, are only two and a half months or less.
B. While one well-known early bone calendar covered a little over two months, later calendars covered longer periods to aid the user in predicting the length of recurring events.
C. Known bone calendars cover only short periods, but an extended series of short-term calendars could have allowed early hunter-gatherers to discover regularities in the timing of events over longer periods.
D. Using bone calendars, early hunter-gatherers could figure out the length of human pregnancy, how long a given food supply would last, and the timing of the next flooding of local streams.
Paragraph 3：Psychologically, it is comforting to think that the use of symbols, for example, in writing might go back such a long way. To imagine that our earliest ancestors were abstract thinkers like us offers a broader and higher historical pyramid to support our modern accomplishments. Though his basic ideas about the beginning of the arithmetic intellect in humans are accepted by a majority of anthropologists, Marshack’s work on lunar calendars, even after 30 years, remains somewhat controversial. Some critics say permanent calendar keeping is not consistent with what we know about the level of conceptual sophistication of these early people. Counting the days would have been too narrow and too abstract an idea for them to employ. Besides, cave dwellers did not need to count days. They knew when to hunt, when to gather, and they certainly could tell when the extended light of the moon would come, simply by spotting the moon after sunset. Why bother to write it all down? The supposed benefits of Marshack’s lunar calendars would have amounted to unnecessary intellectual baggage in the semi-nomadic life of early peoples.
5. Paragraph 3 suggests that some of the interest in Marshack’s lunar calendar hypothesis comes from
A. the discovery that the calendar markings can accurately predict modern-day lunar events
B. further evidence from anthropologists that early people possessed an arithmetic intellect
C. a thorough understanding of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and its requirements
D. a desire to believe that our ancestors were able to think abstractly
6. According to paragraph 3, critics of Marshack’s lunar calendar hypothesis argue that early hunter-gatherers
A. did not need a calendar to keep track of the events and regularities that were relevant to their life
B. were probably good enough arithmeticians to count days without writing anything down
C. had a semi-nomadic way of life in which there were few predictable occurrences for a calendar to keep track of
D. did not contribute to the development of an arithmetic intellect
Paragraph 4：Other opponents have suggested that Marshack’s bones contain no ordered pattern at all, that he has not provided enough examples, and that those he offers include a lot of unsupported interpretations. Are these marks only decorations, or were the bones simply tool-sharpening devices? Slash marks along the edges of some of Marshack’s bones resemble the knife-sharpening cuts made by soldiers that can be seen on the stone pillars throughout the Nile valley. Likewise, early people could have used bones as a means to sharpen the point of a tool rather than to record days in the lunar cycle. Recent experimentation with stone and bone tools suggests that the multiple markings that appear on Marshack’s bones could have been made without much effort in a few hours. Therefore, if there is a pattern, it may be that only the overall design made in few hours was important, in which case the pattern would not consist of individually meaningful marks for days.
7. According to paragraph 4, all of the following have been presented as criticisms of Marshack’s interpretation of the marked bones EXCEPT:
A. The marks on the bones may not actually be grouped in any meaningful way.
B. The individual marks might have been used to represent events other than days.
C. The bone marks might have been made by tool-sharpening activities.
D. Marshack’s interpretation of the bone markings requires more evidence.
8. In paragraph 4, why does the author compare the marks on Marshack’s bones to marks on stone pillars throughout the Nile valley?
A. To argue that keeping track of lunar cycles might have been relatively common
B. To weaken the claim that marks found on bones are early lunar calendars
C. To provide another example of decorations made on a hard surface with a sharp tool
D. To provide a typical example of how archaeologists interpret groups of ancient cut marks
Paragraph 5：These considerations can be taken to argue against the calendar hypothesis, though they do not disprove it.
Paragraph 1：Some researchers believe that we can trace the written calendar back more than 20,000 years to the last ice age. In particular, Alexander Marshack has interpreted cut marks found on bits of bone from central Africa and Paleolithic caves in France to be rudimentary forms of an early lunar calendar. The evidence lies in distinct clusters of cut marks on the bones — marks that could not have been by chance. ■The marks must have been made by using a sharp cutting tool or by twisting a pointed object to form a hole in the surface of the bones. ■According to Marshack, each mark represents a day and these marks are grouped in patterns of 14 or 15 days. ■This interval would correspond to the times between the first sighting of a crescent moon and the full moon, and the interval between a full moon and the beginning a new moon cycle.■
9. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit?
His interpretation is consistent with the fact that the marks in some groups of cuts get increasingly larger, just as the moon seems to get larger as it moves through its cycle.
10. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selected THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
Cut marks found on a few Paleolithic bones are regarded by Alexander Marshack as early lunar calendars, an interpretation that remains controversial.
Answer Choices:
A. Marshack is not alone in believing that the written calendar can be traced back more than 20,000 years to the end of the last ice age.
B. Marshack claims calendars would allow prediction and discovery of events with a set time period and provide a beginning for the process of associating marks with objects, which led to written language.
C. Most scholars agree with Marshack that lunar calendars on bones constituted the beginning of the development of a distinctively arithmetic intellect in humans.
D. The longest bone calendar covers only two and a half months, but several such calendars could have been used to discover longer spans for commonly occurring events, such as human pregnancy.
E. Critics of Marshack question whether early people were capable of the kind of abstract thinking he assumes, or whether they even needed a calendar.
F. Marshack’s view that the cuts in the bones represent the lunar phases is not supported by any evidence, and other research proved the bones were used only to sharpen knives.
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