Reading Comprehension

Later Maya occupations of the Yucatan Peninsula site called Colha have undergone excavation since 1979. In 1993, researchers made the first systematic effort to document a pre-ceramic presence at the tropical, forested location. Early Colha farmers inhabited the area in two phases. There are stone tools in deeper soil layers dating from 2500 B.C. to 1700 B.C., based on radiocarbon age estimates of accompanying charcoal bits. Comparable dates come from an adjacent swamp, where pollen analysis documents forest clearance by 2500 B.C.

The pollen provides evidence for the existence of several cultivated crops soon thereafter, mainly corn and manioc, a starchy plant. From about 1400 B.C. to 1000 B.C., Colha residents made foot-shaped stone tools that were chipped and sharpened on one side. Preliminary scanning electron microscope analysis of polish on these tools suggests that inhabitants used them to cut away vegetation after controlled burning of trees, and, perhaps, also to dig.

An example of the same tool, known as a constricted uni-face, also emerged last year at Pulltrouser Swamp, a Maya site 20 miles northwest of Colha with a preliminary radiocarbon date of 1300 B.C. to 1000 B.C. for the artifact. Its unusual design led researchers to suspect that Colha might have harboured an extremely early Maya population. Another sharpened stone point retrieved at Pulltrouser Swamp dates to between 2500 B.C. and 2000 B.C. Several other sites in Belize have yielded constricted unifaces, but archaeologists have been unsure of their ages and origins.


Techniques used to manufacture constricted unifaces show gradual refinement and modification in stone tools of Colha residents living after 1000 B.C. Continuity in stone tool design and manufacture suggests that pre-ceramic Maya inhabited Colha, rather than non-Maya peoples who migrated to the area and later left or were incorporated into Maya villages. "•None of us had any reason to suppose that Colha would produce a pre-ceramic Maya occupation,"– remarks the director of excavations at Cuello, a Maya site that dates to about 1000 B.C. "•This is a bit of archaeological serendipity."– This is evidence of the earliest known Maya, who cleared and farmed land bordering swamps by 2,500 B.C. The earliest Central American farmers probably settled at the edges of swampland that they had cleared and cultivated. Excavations of preceramic Colha so far have focused on quarry and field areas. However some pottery may still show up in early residential structures.

3. According to the information presented by the author in the passage, analysis
of the stone tools retrieved from Colha led researchers to believe all of the
following EXCEPT:
A. a population of pre-ceramic Mayans existed who used and designed
stone tools.
B. Mayans had settlements prior to 1000 B.C.
C. non-Maya peoples inhabited the area before the Mayans migrated and
took over.
D. the tools underwent various stages of development.
E. tools used by the Mayans were not only restricted to ceramic material
[spoiler]
OA:c[/spoiler]

I was not able to infer from the passage [spoiler]about the authenticity of E. Can someone locate me to it?[/spoiler]

"Continuity in stone tool design and manufacture suggests that pre-ceramic Maya inhabited Colha, rather than non-Maya peoples who migrated to the area and later left or were incorporated into Maya villages"-by looking at this i think C is the right answer.I hope it helps.As regards E it has been shown in the passage that there were stone tools developed in the pre ceramic era