Digital SAT Reading and Writing Practice Question #362

Text 1 For decades, the "Clovis First" model dominated North American archaeology. This framework posited that the Clovis people, identified by their distinctive fluted stone spear points, were the first humans to inhabit the Americas, arriving via the Bering land bridge around 13,000 years ago. Proponents of this theory argued that the absence of any older lithic (stone) tools in lower stratigraphic layers definitively ruled out the possibility of pre-Clovis human migrations. Text 2 In 2021, researchers analyzing fossilized footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico made a startling discovery. Using radiocarbon dating of aquatic plant seeds embedded above and below the tracks, the team dated the footprints to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. These trace fossils provide unequivocal evidence of a robust human presence in North America thousands of years prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, long before the Clovis culture emerged. Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely characterize the "definitive ruling out" mentioned in Text 1?