Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 1 · Question 23

If the artifacts from the earlier period are harder to identify, then they may exist and just be harder for archaeologists to find. This answer resolves the paradox and plays off of the stimulus discussing “known” lamps.

If there have been more Magdalenian sites found, and they were dominant in the late period, then that explains why more lamps were found from that period. There could very well have been just as many lamps earlier, but we haven’t discovered those sites yet.

If the Magdalenians were more efficient at making lamps, then there were likely more lamps when they were dominant, and so the distribution is explained - there were more lamps in the later Upper Paleolithic.

If fire pits were more common in the early Upper Paleolithic, then there would be less of a need for lamps, and thus fewer would be made. The distribution of more lamps from the later period can thus be explained.

The kinds of lamps doesn’t determine or explain the total number of lamps made. There could be a single kind of lamp that is mass produced to a very high level; and there could be many lamps, each of which was made by hand by an artisan and thus very few were made.