There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.

Sentence: The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas.

Paragraph: The researchers also uncovered an unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people. ___(1)___. During the deglaciation period, another group branched out from northern coastal China and travelled to Japan. ___(2)___. "We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool, especially the indigenous Ainus," says Li. ___(3)___. They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points for arrowheads and spears. ___(4)___. "This suggests that the Pleistocene connection among the Americas, China, and Japan was not confined to culture but also to genetics," says senior author Qing-Peng Kong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The sentence best fits in Blank 3 because it logically follows the mention of the unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people mentioned in the sentence preceding Blank 3. After establishing this genetic connection, the sentence provides additional context by explaining the archaeological implications of the discovery. It suggests that the shared genetic link has archaeological manifestations, leading to similarities in the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas. Placing the sentence here helps to connect the genetic findings to broader archaeological and cultural aspects.

Blank 1: The sentence before Blank 1 introduces the unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people. Placing this sentence in Blank 1 would disrupt the logical progression of information, as Blank 1 should provide information that directly connects with or follows from the mention of the unexpected genetic link, and the sentence is more relevant to explaining the broader context after the genetic link has been introduced.

Blank 2: Putting the sentence here makes no sense as there has been no mention of any discovery before.

Blank 4: Placing the sentence here would disrupt the flow of the passage as before Blank 4 the passage mentions how there were similarities between them and After Blank 4, the passage states “ This suggests..”. “This” clearly refers to the similarities mentioned before Blank 4.