Variously, researchers have closely examined obsidian artifacts to document the long-term exploitation of particular obsidian sources, as in Alyson Lighthart Ponomarenko’s 2004 study, or to glean aspects of cultural identity, as in Dennis Ogburn and colleagues’ 2009 study. Studies of the Malia archaeological site on the Mediterranean island of Crete have shown that significant changes to building styles—changes consistent with an influx of people from another culture elsewhere in the Mediterranean—occurred from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age. In a 2022 study, however, Tristan Carter and Vassilis Kilikoglou found that obsidian-object production methods at Malia stayed remarkably consistent during this architectural transition, which they interpret as indicative of local cultural continuity in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Command of Evidence
hardWhich finding, if true, would most directly weaken Carter and Kilikoglou’s argument?
A
The methods used to produce obsidian objects at Malia during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages were also used by some other Mediterranean cultures in the period.
B
Changes to buildings like those that occurred at Malia have not been linked to changes in obsidian-object production methods in other Mediterranean cultures during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
C
The obsidian-object production method that was most common among other Mediterranean cultures during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages was more efficient than the method used at Malia.
D
The obsidian used to produce objects at Malia was transported to Crete from the same source elsewhere in the Mediterranean throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.