1.8 – Sample Response

 Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose specific points made in the reading passage.

 

The reading claims that the Anasazi Indians disappeared suddenly because they were defeated in war. The lecturer, meanwhile, states that a lack of water caused them to vanish.

First, the reading declares that conquering Indian tribes, as was their tradition, burned the Anasazi settlements. The lecturer, however, claims that, these settlements were burned by the Anasazi themselves. He thinks they were holding ceremonies to appease their gods and to beg for water, and they burned their own sites as part of the rituals.

Second, the professor claims that the large numbers of personal items archaeologists have found in Anasazi sites were left there intentionally since they did not need them in their search for water. The reading, on the other hand, makes the argument that the Anasazi left them either when they were defeated in war or fleeing invaders.

Finally, although the reading mentions that invaders, eager to settle on the Anasazi’s water-rich lands, took the lands from the Anasazi in war, the professor states that the Anasazi’s large population increase proved fatal to them when the rain stopped falling. According to him, their population rose ten times during the golden age, but it decreased rapidly as they suffered severely from a tack of water supplies.