Which choice most logically completes the text? | Verbal SAT Question

In 1967, archaeologist James Mellaart claimed that at its peak, Çatalhöyük—a 33-acre Neolithic village in present-day Turkey that dates from approximately 7100 to 5950 BCE—housed between 8,000 to 10,000 residents, an estimate based on the excavation of dense clusters of mud brick buildings that were thought to have been dwellings. Arguing that such estimates should be reevaluated, Ian Kuijt and Arkadiusz Marciniak (2024) cite radiocarbon data and ethnographic modeling that suggest the heterogeneity of building use in Çatalhöyük, with many individual buildings being inhabited for relatively brief periods—20 to 30 years or less—before being abandoned or repurposed for nonresidential functions (e.g., storage). Accordingly, these recent findings challenge the assumption that

Which choice most logically completes the text?

the number of buildings at Çatalhöyük would have been sufficient to accommodate a population that expanded from 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants by 5950 BCE.

the use of mud bricks is a reliable indicator that a structure had been used either as a dwelling or for nonresidential purposes.

the density of excavated buildings at Çatalhöyük can serve as a proxy for how many people inhabited the village at a given time.

the buildings excavated at Çatalhöyük at the time of Mellaart’s research had served a residential purpose as early as 7100 BCE.