The earliest Mayan pottery found at Colha, in Belize, is about 3,000

I can't make any connections between the stem to A,B,C and E. Only D makes sense by providing alternative explanation to the implements (whatever it was!!)
stem: Mayan dated at 3000 ago
Earlier implement dated at 4500 ago
Mayan's implement resembled earlier implement
therefore Mayan dated to 4500 ago

Choice D:Mayan dated at 3000 ago
Earlier implement dated at 4500 ago
Mayan's implement resembled earlier implement
therefore Mayan copied earlier culture

(D) Successor cultures("may be Mayans or may be not" of a much later period) at a given site often adopt the style of agricultural implements used by earlier inhabitants of the same site. This is the only option that weakens the argument. This statement says that other cultures at the same place adopt the style of agricultural implementation used by earlier cultures in the same place. Hence, those ppl who lived 4500 years ago may not have been Mayans.

Hope it clears the doubt! Kudos!

Given - the implements’ designs are strikingly different from the designs of stone implements produced by other cultures known to have inhabited the area in prehistoric times.

(D) Successor cultures at a given site often adopt the style of agricultural implements used by earlier inhabitants of the same site.

Unable to understand how D is the correct choice if it is given that the designs were different than ones produced by other cultures that lived in the area before mayans. What am i interpreting incorrectly.

The part you missed is: "KNOWN to have inhabited the area". There could possibly be some other culture NOT KNOWN, from which the Mayans adopted the stone implements. Therefore option D is correct.

Earliest Mayan pottery found at Colha is about 3,000 years old (so we think that first Mayans might have lived at that time)

Recently, however, 4,500-year-old stone agricultural implements were unearthed at Colha.
These implements resemble Mayan stone implements of a much later period, also found at Colha. (perhaps 3000 or 2000 yrs old)

Moreover, the implements’ designs are strikingly different from the designs of stone implements produced by other cultures known to have inhabited the area in prehistoric times. (the design is different from designs on other cultures known to have inhabited there so it increases the probability that they look like Mayan implements not because all implements of those times look the same but because they are Mayan implements.

Conclusion: Therefore, there were surely Mayan settlements in Colha 4,500 years ago.
Mayans existed 4500 years ago.

Because implements very similar to Mayan implements and different from other implements of those times were found 4500 years ago in Colha, we are concluding that Mayans lived in Colha 4500 years ago.
We need to weaken this. How can we do that? If we say that another civilisation lived at that time who used these implements and Mayans inherited their implements later, then we can weaken that Mayans lived 4500 years ago.

(A) Ceramic ware is not known to have been used by the Mayan people to make agricultural implements.

We are talking about stone implements.

(B) Carbon-dating of corn pollen in Colha indicates that agriculture began there around 4,500 years ago.

If agriculture began around 4500 years ago and we found agricultural implements of 4500 year ago, it is consistent with our argument. It doesn't impact that Mayans lived 4500 yrs ago.

(C) Archaeological evidence indicates that some of the oldest stone implements found at Colha were used to cut away vegetation after controlled burning of trees to open areas of swampland for cultivation.

Irrelevant to our argument.

(D) Successor cultures at a given site often adopt the style of agricultural implements used by earlier inhabitants of the same site.

Correct. This weakens our conclusion. It is possible that some other civilisation lived in Colha and used these implements 4500 yrs ago, and Mayans were the successor culture of that civilisation so they adopted their style of agricultural implements. Then Mayans may not have lived 4500 years ago and may have just been the successors of another civilisation that lived 4500 years ago.

(E) Many religious and social institutions of the Mayan people who inhabited Colha 3,000 years ago relied on a highly developed system of agricultural symbols.

Irrelevant

Answer (D)

VeritasKarishma
Thanks for explaining this.
My point in D is that successor culture is one in which people are of same tribe as their predecessors.

Since the people in successor culture belong to same tribe, 4500 years ago people were also Mayans. This is how I thought and eliminated D because it was acting as a strengthener .

Please help.

"successor culture" means a culture that comes after a previous culture. The two cultures are different. If both are the same culture, how will one be the successor culture of another? They will be the same culture with one person as the successor of another in the same culture.

Hi VeritasKarishma,

IMO, the stimulus is very tricky to understand.

The stimulus states, 'the implements’ designs are strikingly different from the designs of stone implements produced by other cultures known to have inhabited the area'.

And the answer choice D states, 'Successor cultures at a given site often adopt the style of agricultural implements used by earlier inhabitants of the same site.'

So, going through the thread and for D to be the correct answer choice, it seems Mayans have adopted the style of agriculture implements from a culture not known or different from those described in the stimulus.

Is my understanding correct?

Please help!

Hi VeritasKarishma :

(E) Many religious and social institutions of the Mayan people who inhabited Colha 3,000 years ago relied on a highly developed system of agricultural symbols.

Can't E be interpreted as:
Mayan people who inhabited Colha 3,000 years ago were using these symbols in their religious and social institutions and as these symbols were highly developed, so it may appear that they had preserved these symbols or got from other places . The key point is that these symbols were not used for actual agricultural purpose ( maybe for worship purposes) so it is wrong to assume that there were settlements because of these agriculture symbols.

It maybe possible that Mayan started using these symbols for worship at later purpose, so it is wrong to assume settlements because of these symbols. ( in summary , these symbols don't represent relationship with agricultural practice , hence conclusion of relating settlements with these symbols is wrong)

Please clarify my doubt for E

thanks!

Note the distinction between "area" and "site".
An area could cover a vast region. Other cultures living in that area implies other neighbouring cultures who lived in that area. The argument is telling us that the implements were unique among the implements of those times. Hence, those peculiar implements likely belonged to Mayans which means Mayans could have lived 4500 yrs ago.

Option (D) talks about the site where the implements were found. If Mayans were the successor civilisation of another civilisation at that site, and successor civilisation inherit implements, then the civilisation 4500 yrs ago may not be Mayan. So (D) weakens our conclusion.

I am not sure I understand the connection. If Mayans used highly developed agricultural symbols for social and religious purposes 3000 yrs ago, it doesn't help us connect or disconnect them from the discovery of agricultural implements found from 4500 yrs ago. There is no discussion of symbols in the argument. The option does not give us whether such symbols were found on the implements of 4500 yrs ago. Hence, new information about 3000 yrs ago without any reference to 4500 yrs ago is pointless.

karishma GMATNinja

In option D -> the early inhabitants could be Mayan/Non-Mayan right? Then how can we say the successor culture was adopted from only non-Mayans, and not from Mayan?

There are both possible events, and frankly none of the option seemed correct for me in the first go and hence got stumbbled for a longer time.

Could you please clarify the same?

You raise a good question: was the earlier culture Mayan or non-Mayan? Let's consider the exact words of (D) to see if that sheds any light on the issue:

Does this give us any helpful clues? Well, the phrase "successor cultures" suggests that an earlier culture is followed by a different culture. If this were not the case, you wouldn't need to specify that the second culture was a "successor culture." Rather, you would just have one continuous culture over time. So the phrase "successor culture" implies that the earlier culture was different, i.e. non-Mayan.

Additionally, (D) talks about how "successor cultures" often adopt the styles of implements used by earlier inhabitants. This suggests that "successor cultures" are different than the earlier ones. Because if they were the same culture, presumably the later people wouldn't need to "adopt" the style of the "earlier" culture. It would be the same as the earlier culture, so the people would already know the style. This also implies that the cultures were different.

Overall, while (D) doesn't explicitly state that the earlier culture was non-Mayan, the exact words of (D) strongly imply this. For that reason, (D) is correct.

I hope that helps!

Hi MartyMurray GMATNinja KarishmaB egmat

is the above statement mentioned in passage not enough to eliminate option D ? Does this 'known to have' really have that much importance and means MAYANS could inherit the style from unknown successor culture ?­

 
Here is the gist -
At Colha in Belize, we found 4500 yrs old tools that are very similar to Mayan tools of a much later time found at Colha.
These tools are very different from tools of other cultures known to have inhabited that area (hence these tools likely did not belong to some other culture).

Based on this, we are concluding that there were surely Mayan settlements in Colha 4,500 years ago. (because we found tools similar to their tools)

But what if the settlement in Colha 4500 years ago were some other culture and Mayans settled there around 3000 years ago only? The Mayans just adopted the tools of the previous culture living there. This is indicated by option (D).
Then our conclusion is weakened. We cannot say that there were surely Mayan settlements in Colha. 



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Hi KarishmaB Mam, Thanks for the kind response !
That is exactly my understanding that these tools didnt belong to any culture which inhabitated there except Mayans, but then
How can this be possible ?

Kindly help, Thanks !­­

Option (D) implies that it is possible that there was a culture (that we do not know about) that lived around 4500 years ago at that site and Mayans came later and adopted this culture's tools. That is why Mayan tools look remarkably similar to the tools discovered recently. Then can we conclude that Mayans lived there 4500 years ago? No. It weakens our conclusion. It is possible that some other culture lived there and Mayans adopted their tools. 
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