GRE考试

【单选题】Until recently, scrutiny of tree-ring records seemed to establish that a prolonged dry spell called the GreatDrought drove theAnasazi Indians to abandon their magnificent stone villages on theColorado Plateau. Line Groundbreaking climatological studies have convinced many archaeologists, however, that the GreatDrought was not sufficiently austere to coerce the sudden evacuation of theAnasazi. Reviewing tree ring records, including moisture levels, Van West disputed the GreatDrought theory by presenting evidence that enough corn could have been grown during the drought to support the population, that theAnasazi had weathered many severe droughts in the past, and that the evacuation actually began before the dry spell set in.　　Belying the popular image of theAnasazi as a peaceable kingdom of farmers and potters, some new research puts the blame for the evacuation on a bloody internecine war. Noting that theAnasazi had been suffering from malnutrition, shorter life spans and increased infant mortality,Adler suggests that theAnasazi were not able to move around freely to farm because their once open range was becoming balkanized into hostile fiefdoms. Perhaps as a reaction to drier weather, people in the Mesa Verde area began building dams and canals to trap and divert water, and the result may have been conflict and warfare. Unfortunately, other archeologists, having trouble envisioning how even drought, balkanization and warfare could make an entire civilization evacuate, are trying to combine archeological evidence with anthropological studies of the modern pueblo Indians to make the case that theAnasazi were roiled by a religious crisis as divisive asEuropean medieval heresies.Analyzing the spread of religious symbols found on rocks or pottery and the distribution of ceremonial structures, some argue that theAnasazi may have been pulled from their homeland by a new religion emerging to the south, whose egalitarian spirit would have had great appeal to a civilization, like theAnasazi’’s, that was entering a dark age. Ware comes closest to a plausible synthesis of his predecessors’’ theories in suggesting that theAnasazi world was rocked by a spiritual crisis catastrophic enough to cause a collapse of a civilization, and that the uprootedAnasazi apparently embraced a variety of new beliefs on migration to their new homes.　　Ware further argues that the precipitating factor in the evacuation may have been a change in climate after all. Recent climatological studies suggest that indeed, rainfall patterns were disrupted in a way that might have made theAnasazi disillusioned with their old religion: the customary pattern of heavy snows in the winter followed by summer monsoons had become unpredictable.Even if there was not a great drought, moisture may have been coming at the wrong times, and the summer rains, essential for nourishing the spring crops, were no longer reliable―the rain dances were not working anymore. Thus, Ware’’s theory accommodates the greatest variety of factors that may explain theAnasazi’’s evacuation.The author considers the explanations put forward by Van West andAdler for the causes of theAnasazi evacuation to be________.
A、popular but suspect

B、partially persuasive, but individually insufficient
C．anachronistic and controversial
D．premature and illogical

E、ambitious but misguided

网考网参考答案：B
网考网解析：
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