While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- For decades, historians argued that residents of an ancient Mediterranean settlement imported finished purple dye.
- This interpretation was based partly on early excavations that found no large piles of discarded murex snail shells, a common byproduct of producing purple dye.
- In 2022, archaeologists analyzed residue preserved inside ceramic vats at the settlement.
- Chemical tests identified compounds associated with murex purple dye.
- Researchers also found microscopic murex shell fragments in sediment from a workshop drain.
- The findings do not reveal whether the snails were gathered locally or brought to the settlement from elsewhere.
The student wants to explain how the recent evidence challenges the older interpretation without claiming more than the findings support. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?