Text 1

In 2007, a team led by Alice Storey analyzed a chicken bone found in El Arenal, Chile, dating it to 1321-1407 CE--over a century before Europeans invaded the region, bringing their own chickens. Storey also found that the El Arenal chicken shared a unique genetic mutation with the ancient chicken breeds of the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific. Thus, Polynesian peoples, not later Europeans, probably, first introduced chickens to South America.

Text 2

An Australian research team weakened the case for a Polynesian origin for the El Arenal chicken by confirming that the mutation identified by Storey has occurred in breeds from around the world. More recently, though, a team led by Agusto Luzuriaga-Neira found that South American chicken breeds and Polynesian breeds share other genetic markers that European breeds lack. Thus, the preponderance of evidence now favors a Polynesian origin.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1?

Question

Text 1

In 2007, a team led by Alice Storey analyzed a chicken bone found in El Arenal, Chile, dating it to 1321-1407 CE--over a century before Europeans invaded the region, bringing their own chickens. Storey also found that the El Arenal chicken shared a unique genetic mutation with the ancient chicken breeds of the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific. Thus, Polynesian peoples, not later Europeans, probably, first introduced chickens to South America.

Text 2

An Australian research team weakened the case for a Polynesian origin for the El Arenal chicken by confirming that the mutation identified by Storey has occurred in breeds from around the world. More recently, though, a team led by Agusto Luzuriaga-Neira found that South American chicken breeds and Polynesian breeds share other genetic markers that European breeds lack. Thus, the preponderance of evidence now favors a Polynesian origin.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1?

Accepted Answer

By noting that while the claim is persuasive, the findings of Luzuriaga-Neira's team provide stronger evidence for it than the findings of the genetic analysis conducted by Storey do

Answer

By broadly agreeing with the claim but objecting that the timeline it presupposes conflicts with the findings of the genetic analysis conducted by Storey's team

Answer

By faulting the claim for implying that domestic animals couldn't have been transferred from South America to the Polynesian Islands as well

Answer

By critiquing the claim for being based on an assumption that before the European invasion of South America, the chickens of Europe were genetically uniform