Reading Comprehension

The Clovis points migration model offers evidence that the first movement of Homo sapiens into North America occurred approximately 14,000 years ago. History of the human presence in what is now Clovis, New Mexico, was discovered 40 years ago. A single spear point was found embedded in the hip bone of a mammoth presumably killed by a band of hunters. Paleo-archeologists determined the age of the bone: 13,400 years! When Clovis points were later found in a walrus hip in Chesapeake Bay, it seemed as if a technology had spread from eastern to western America.

Today, points similar to "Clovis" have been found in northern Spain and southern France; made by the Salutrian people. How could this connection be explained? It seems that approximately 15,000 years ago a boundary of the ice sheet extended across the Atlantic Ocean from France to North America. Paleo-archeologists now think the Salutrians traveled in skin boats across the frontier of the ice sheet all the way across this continent then took a left turn to the southwest, bringing their technology with them.

But wait! What about the Siberia-Alaska migration model? This land bridge migration theory for the New World has been widely accepted for eight decades. It proposes that hunters, tracking animal herds, migrated from Siberia into Alaska and down through North and Central America.

If the inhabitants of North America came across the Bering Strait from Siberia, then wouldn't it be assumed that the Clovis technology would be found there too? Nope. In fact, in Siberia, the tools of hunting were made of thin, sharp strips of stone embedded in strong wood and called "micro blades," nothing like the Clovis points. Further, the "scatter-path" of Salutrian artifacts included other tools such as axes unique to the Salutrians.

Not enough evidence? In recent genetic testing, Salutrian DNA has been found among east coast Native Americans. Case closed. Or maybe not.

Still another counter-theory is that watercraft could have brought other peoples to the shores of South America who then drifted north. There have been well-dated stratigraphic studies that point to people entering Australia some 40,000 years ago. At that period Australia was not connected to another continent, a fact leading to the assumption that it was reached by watercraft. If Australia was reached in this fashion, isn't there some reason to believe that the New World could have been reached in the same way?

But isn't the Salutrian explanation bullet proof? Were the first inhabitants of the New World actually French?

Well, no Salutrian artifacts have been found post- 11,000 years in France. What happened? Did each and every Salutrian come here? Or is it possible, to muddy the water a little more, that the Clovis points were developed on the North American continent?

The phrase "muddy the water a little more" in the last paragraph is probably used by the author to
A) provide additional clarity to the comments
B) dissuade the reader from accepting one theory over another
C) distill the apparent theoretical conflicts into a memorable catch phrase
D) further obscure the truth
E) offer a compelling, inescapable conclusion to the story line

Source: BTG Practice Questions
OA: C