Explanation
A. The passage does not discuss the time required for a behavior to impact biological evolution in the parenthetical sentence.
B. (Correct Response) The parenthetical sentence provides archaeological evidence that the practice of cooking has been around for a significant time, specifically mentioning evidence from sites that go back more than 250,000 years, which supports the idea that cooking has been a long-standing practice.
C. The parenthetical sentence does not specify when humans became unable to survive on raw-food diets, only that cooking has been practiced for a long time.
D. There is no intention in the parenthetical sentence to undermine the suggestion that the adoption of cooking affected human digestive anatomy; rather, it supports the significance of cooking in human evolution.
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E. The sentence does not specify the technology used for cooking, it only indicates the existence of evidence for the use of fire and apparent "earth ovens."
The primary purpose of the parenthetical sentence near the end of the first paragraph is to reinforce the argument that cooking has been a significant part of human behavior for a long period, supporting the idea of its impact on biological evolution.