That twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excav

In option A .. "that twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excavating of a 1,000-year-old Hohokam village in Tempe, Arizona." Yes, this entire clause is the subject, and as it begins with "that" it's singular, agreeing with the verb "has." However, it's extraordinarily awkward to use such a long noun clause to begin a sentence. Furthermore, noun clauses rarely make sense as the subjects of transitive verbs, and are much more often the subjects of the verb "to be" than anything else. An example of a clear usage of a noun clause is this:

"That the problems are difficult is clear; what is interesting is how to answer them."

Both noun clauses ("that..." and "what...") are short and are the subject of the verb "to be" -- in the second part of the sentence, the first noun clause, "what...", is properly equated to another noun clause, "how...." Thus these are good sentences. The original one here, however, isn't ideal, and if there is a choice that uses a simple noun and modifiers instead of the long awkward noun clause to be the subject of "has doubled," as long as that choice makes no further errors, it will be the ideal choice.

Of the remaining choices, it's necessary to keep the subject singular, so that it agrees with the singular verb "has" that isn't underlined and therefore can't change. (B) and (D) both make the subject "figurines," which is plural, and therefore need to be eliminated.

(C) is awkward because gerunds are similar to noun clauses in that it's hard to make them logically the subject of transitive verbs -- was it really the act of "discovering" them? or rather the fact that they were discovered? -- and a noun, as in (E), would be far better. Furthermore, it's rarely correct to use a gerund after a preposition, so "at the excavating" in (C) should raise some eyebrows, while "during the excavation" in (E) is, again, far superior.
Thus (E) is the correct answer.

‘That’ is a demonstrative pronoun. But in this sentence, ‘that’ makes the clause into a noun clause which serves as the subject here.

The entire subject here then becomes the following:
‘That twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excavating of a 1000 year old Hohokam village in Tempe, Arizona,”

But you can see that the sentence feels awkward. IMO, if the structure was as follows, it would have made more sense:

That X … has doubled… is <something more>

But this is not the case here. Eliminate Option A.

So let’s look at the other options.

Options B and D have clear Subject Verb Agreement errors. We cannot have ‘has’ with ‘figurines’. Eliminate Options B and D.

In Option C – it is incorrect to say ‘discovering … at the excavating’.
As daagh has already pointed out, when there is an accepted and common noun form, it is not advisable to use a gerund in its place. Eliminate Option C.

Option E is the best choice.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the explanation. However, for option A, I believe the usage of 'has' is correct. As anairamitch1804 mentioned in her reply that the 'That clause' takes up a singular verb, in this case 'has'. The problem with A seems to be the usage of the 'That clause'. A normal straight forward subject would be preferred over a 'That clause'. Also the word 'excavating' doesn't seem right, however I don't want to reject an option simply because it doesn't seem right.

Can you please let me know whether my thinking here is correct.

Thanks!

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