Sentence Correction

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.
(A) was more likely to begin as
(B) more than likely began as
(C) more than likely beginning from
(D) it was more than likely begun from
(E) it was more likely that it began

OA is B

Could an exprt explain ,please, why the answer choice B is not correct. I see this parallel to the clause before but .. "the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech" .

Thanks.