字数414
The author claims that the Palean baskets were not unique to Palea, which is believed previously. To justify the conclusion the arguer cites a discovery that a "Palean" basket was discovered in Lithos, an acncientancient village across the Brim River frmfrom Palea. To support the assertions the author points out that the Brim River is unable to across and there is no need for the Paleans. However, careful scutinyscrutiny reveals a series of logical problems, which render the argument unconvincing.
First of all, the author depends on gratuitous assumption that "the Brim River is very deep and broad" and the ancient Paleans could not across it. Actually, it is not necessarily the case. For example, it is most likely that Paleans are able to build boats big enough to carry them across the river though no evidence for the archaeologists to recognize that. Perhaps, using a small boat which could carry only one person, Paleans cross the river frequently. Or it is possible that the Brim rive are only a little stream so many years before, thus Paleans could easily swim across the river without any big boats. Additionally, Paleans could walk across the river in winter if the river is freezed strong enough to hold a human. Therefore, this argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibilities.
Second, the arguer fails to lend support to the assumption that "Paleans would have no need to cross the river". The evidence stated in the argument is not enough to support this assumption. For instance, Paleans often swim across the river for collecting a kind of berries which only grow in Lithos, and left the basket there once. Or perhaps the Lithos is wealthier than Palean, and the Paleans try to across the river by all kind of ways they could.
Last but not least, the author fails to consider other possibilities of the Palean basket's arrival to Lithos. As an illustration, it is highly possible that the basket was blowed across the river since the basket is so light. Or perhaps the basket was delivered to Lithos many years after the disappearance of the Paleans, when the big boats are invented.
In sum, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To better assess it the arguer would provide clear evidence that the Paleans have no other means other than cross the river by big boats. To better evaluate the argument, we would need more information about how the basket was delivered to Lithos.