This is the last passage of the set and this is an easy one.

What I mean by that is two things. One is there are only five questions, which is not...

like, compare that to passage three, which had a ton of questions, I think like eight questions.

So it's shorter, you should spend less time on it. And also this passage is not as dense,

it's easier to understand, and the structure is very clearly laid out. I think there's probably

only one tough question in all of this, but anyway, so you should be spending the least

amount of time on this passage. Or if you're not getting all the questions right, then this is

the passage that you should be doing. So let's read this together and we'll do the same thing

that we did with all the other passages, which is I'll show you the kind of stuff you should be

thinking about, the questions you should be asking as you're reading through this. So we have,

primarily on evidence from historical documents. So we're concerned about the changing face of the

Irish landscape. So this is like a geology or geography, I should say, passage. So how have we...

What was Ireland like, the landscape, like 500 years ago, 700 years, a thousand years ago? We

looked at primarily historical documents, documents from the past. However, such documents,

documentary sources provide a fragmentary record at best. Yeah, I mean, especially if you go back

a thousand years, I don't know who was keeping documents of that stuff, right? Or 3,000 years,

people were probably busy just etching out a living, trying not to get disease and starvation

and stuff. Who's writing stuff down? Anyway, so it was not a great source. Reliable accounts are

very scarce for many parts of Ireland prior to 17th century. So, okay, post 17th century,

stuff became more prevalent, I guess. But prior to 17th century, there wasn't that much stuff.

And many of the relevant documents from the 16th and 17th centuries focus selectively on matters

relating to military or commercial interest. So even the stuff that, even when documentation

became more relevant, it doesn't tell us too much about landscape. Maybe if it was a

military, I'm guessing like military, you probably have a very detailed map of a certain place,

right? Because it's military or commercial, right? Very detailed map. But then if it was not a

military commercial interest, then probably we lack the document. So anyway, so all this first

paragraph tells me is that we're going to talk about Irish landscape and the traditional sources

historical document and how it's all inadequate. So now I'm thinking, well, you're probably going

to tell me a different way, right? Like a new, better way to think about, to study the landscape.

So then indeed, that's what they talk about next. So that's a transition here from the first

a second. Fossilized pollen grains, right? What are those things? Well, pollen grains, the stuff

that plants use to make baby plants and they're fossilized. Where are they preserved? They're

preserved in peats and lake mud. So that's what we're gonna be talking about. Fossilized pollen

grains preserved in these two places. They provide an additional means of investigating

vegetative landscape change. Now, instead of just broadly landscape, now I know specifically,

I'm talking about vegetative landscape. Okay. And details of change in vegetation resulting from

both human activity and natural events are reflected in the kinds and quantities. So

what kind of pollen, how much of it, of the minute pollen grains that became trapped in

sediment. So great. So this is a totally different way of examining this, the history of vegetative

landscape in Ireland. An analysis of the samples can identify which kind of plants produce

the preserved pollen. Right. So you see a pollen and then we analyze it. We're like, oh, this pollen

belongs to this plant X, right? Or plant Y or whatever. So not only what kind of plants, but

also when they were deposited. In many cases, findings can serve to supplement or correct

documentary records. So, ah, okay. So we're gonna be, so this stuff, what we learn from here is

going to supplement our existing understanding based on documentary records or completely overthrow

our existing understanding. So this fits the mold very well of science, of the science passage,

where we have existing hypotheses subject to new evidence, to new data, the existing hypotheses

will be supplemented and improved upon or completely overthrown. Right. So now let's

to support this, right? That's going to support this. Let's get to down to the details. So I'm

thinking this is the main conclusion, right? I mean, you know, they tell us that this method,

documentary method is terrible. We have a new method. That's great. That's going to do this.

Well, why should I believe that it's going to supplement or correct? Well, here, here we go.

We're going to talk about example. And then what I did here was actually, I looked, I looked down

at the beginning sentence of, and I see another example, something, oh, great, perfect. Now I'm

just getting the structure of this argument down. Right. And then, and then I looked down even more.

This is a little, I suppose this is a little advanced. I don't know if you should do this. If

you're a beginner, you probably shouldn't, but I looked down a little more at this, at this paragraph,

it says it must be stressed though. So this though tells me the change of phrase. I'm thinking,

ah, okay. So we had two premises that support this main conclusion about how this, this pollen

analysis can supplement or correct our understanding. Two premises that tell us that,

right. In those two paragraphs, and then some sort of qualification at the end, but you know,

oh, but don't take it too far because you know, there's still like, I don't know, some, some

incomplete science or something. But anyway, so for example, analysis of samples from, from

Longlow County in County down have revealed significant patterns of cereal grain pollen

beginning about 400 AD. Okay. So cereal grain like wheat and I don't know, rye and barley and stuff.

400 AD. All right. So the substantial clay content of the soil in this part in, in Longlow

and County down. So there's a lot of clay in the soil and there's a lot of clay in the soil.

And why is that relevant? It makes cultivation by, by primitive tools, very difficult.

Ah, okay. So now you got to make that connection. Are they saying 400 is primitive? That's what you

have to be thinking about. Right. So about 400 BC, but then, you know, see, we found pollen

cereal in 400 BC. We found it already. Right. So at that point, this clay is still clay. It's still

difficult. So it's still difficult to, to cultivate, which means at that point in 400, they have ways

to do it. And so historians thought that such soil were not tilled to any significant extent

until the introduction of the moldboard plow to Ireland, right? Because of how hard it is.

So we thought, oh, well then, if I'm a historian thinking, well, it's very hard to cultivate a

primitive tools prior and to cut it. We do have this moldboard plow that was introduced in the

seventh century, the seventh century here that made it okay to do that made it okay to plow

through this, but because cereal cultivation would have required the tilling of the soil.

Let's see now, now you have to piece it all together. Cereal cultivation, which we know

see from the cereal grain pollen that was there 400 from 400 BC or rather not BC, AD, there was

that cereal grain, but because cereal cultivation requires the tilling of soil requires the tilling,

even though this tilling is very difficult, right? The pollen evidence indicates that these soils

must indeed have been successfully tilled before the introduction of the new plow, new plow,

referring to the moldboard plow. You see, because in 400, we already had these cereal grain pollens,

but it was still the same clay, same soil with the same clay. So what it needed a way to be tilled,

right? With this cereal cultivation, it requires the tilling. So back then we know we can infer

that they must have had some way to till it. And we know the moldboard wasn't there until the seven,

until 300 years later, or I made a mistake, 400 AD, seven centuries, 200 years later,

seven centuries, like 600. What an unintuitive naming convention. But anyway, so like 200 years

later, this moldboard plow was introduced, but they definitely tilled it before this plow was

introduced, right? That's the premise. See, that was our, without this pollen, without this pollen

analysis, that's what the historians believe that this soil wasn't successfully tilled until the 600s.

But now with this pollen analysis, we can infer that it must have been tilled. Yeah,

not with a moldboard plow, but in some other way, it must have been tilled 200 years earlier.

Right? So that's, see, that's where it just completely corrected the new understanding,

rather the old understanding, or I don't know, corrected, supplemented, I guess you can argue,

I don't know. Anyway, one of the two. Another example concerns flax cultivation in County

County Down produced a lot of linen, great. And some aspects of linen production down are well

documented, like, I don't know, maybe what machines were used, what kind of labor, how much you paid

your workers, stuff that needed documentation. But the documentary records tell little about

the cultivation of flax. And why is that important? Because flax is a plant from which linen is made,

right? So in that area, and the record of 18th century linen production in Down,

together with a knowledge that flax cultivation had been established in Ireland centuries before

that, lest some historians have surmised that this plant was being cultivated in Down before

the 18th century. So historians knew that this is a linen-producing area, they know that linen comes

from flax. And they also know that flax cultivation is a long-established tradition in Ireland. So

they surmise, they infer from that, that the cultivation, flax was cultivated in Down way

before the 18th century. But then pollen analysis indicate that that's not the case. You see,

that's not the case, because flax pollen was found only in the past as laid down since the

18th century. So if these historians are right, based on the pre-pollen analysis evidence they

have, then you'd expect to find flax pollen. But we don't. We find flax pollen only since the 18th

century. So it was cultivated, but you got the timing wrong. The previous historians got timing

wrong. So you see, you got two very good major premises, major premises from these two paragraphs

to support this main conclusion, that analysis samples identify which kind of plants, and in

many cases the findings can serve to supplement or correct the documentary record. Okay, but now

here's a qualification. But it must be stressed, though, you see, you sense the change in direction

that there are limits to the ability of pollen record to reflect vegetative history. Right,

I mean, I'm sure there are, right? For example, pollen analysis cannot identify the species,

but only the genus or family of some plants. Right, that's problematic, because among these

is madder, a cultivated dye plant of historical importance in Ireland. So this plant was

cultivated to use as dye, to give color to things. And madder belongs to a family that also comprises

various native weeds. Ah, so there you go. So if something was already there, right, native weeds,

it's the same family, including goosegrass. So if madder pollens were present in a deposit,

you just can't say, did the people cultivate madder there? Or was it just the uncultivated

native goosegrass that was there? So see, this is a limit to which we can apply pollen analysis.

So very, very straightforward. I think for reading passages, it just structurally does not get

simpler, more simple than this. Right, introduce the subject and why our current way of studying

the subject is lacking, a new way of studying the subject that's proposed to be better,

which is the main conclusion. And then we have two supporting paragraphs that give you examples

how it's better. Finally, a qualification of how you, you know, it's not, it's better, but like,

it can't do everything.

24 says the passage indicates that pollen analysis have provided evidence

against which one the following views. Ah, okay, so that's that we know exactly

what we're looking for. Against which one the following views,

the idea that the soil wasn't tilled until the 600s until the 7th

century, that's over here, and against the view that flax was grown up before

18th century in this region, right? So those are the two views that we're

looking for, that pollen sort of overturned.

Paul analysis overturned. The mobile board plow was introduced.

This was introduced, right? We know they started tilling the land as early as

400, which means before the mobile board plow was introduced,

we don't know how they did it. Maybe they did it with some other

type of board plow, right? But so that does not,

this is not the thing that was, uh, that the evidence over through.

extent before the seventh century, and there you go.

That's it. That's the, in certain parts of county down,

where specifically long low and county down. What about long low?

Well, in that part of county down, Uh, cereal grains weren't cultivated until the

7th century, because they- and that's exactly the story I thought,

because they thought, in order to cultivate, you need to till the soil,

the soil is really hard to till, and- and we thought it was only

with the introduction of the mold board in the 17th- 7th century that it

was- started tilling. But now, of course, that view has been overthrown,

right? P*********** provided evidence against this view,

because as early as 400, they started- they started growing it,

so we inferred they must have had a way to till it. C says

introduction, I mean, I don't. Is that even true?

I don't even know if that's true. Maybe there was a break here or

there. Serial grain cultivation requires successful telling of the solid.

Paul analysis did not provide evidence against this.

We- we take this as true to infer that it must have been that

in- as early as 400, that telling began. Serial grain cultivation began in-

It's not the original- View that this evidence,

that this Paul analysis was evidence against.