Passage 43
Meggers argued that agriculture depends on extracting nutrients from soils into edible crops, so premodern societies in Amazonia could never grow large because underlying soils are impoverished. In Meggers’ view the population size that a culture could reach depended upon the agricultural potential of its environment. Meggers accepted that fish and turtle resources of the Amazon made possible the long riverside villages the explorer Orellana described in 1542, but she dismissed as exaggerated Carvajal’s estimates of tens of thousands of people in those settlements, and she was sure those settlements did not have inland counterparts. Supporting this point, the Omagua, a riverbank people and one of the greatest chiefdoms observed by Carvajal as a member of Orellana’s expedition, regarded hinterland forests as unpopulated wilderness.
1. In the context of the passage the highlighted sentence serves to
A. explain the broader rationale for a conclusion described in the preceding sentence
B. suggest some of the drawbacks of the riverbank location of the villages described in the following sentence
C. acknowledge information that appears to undermine a description attributed to Orellana
D. introduce a principle that appears to be contradicted by the agricultural development of premodern Amazonia
E. give a reason for an upward revision in earlier estimates for premodern Amazonia
2. From the passage it can be inferred that Omagua depended on
A. overland transport to communicate between villages
B. foraging inland to obtain foodstuffs not available locally
C. some form of fertilization to boost agricultural production
D. fish and turtles for at least part of their diet
E. trade with other peoples for some raw materials
答案：A D
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