Australia began to assume its modem configuration by the Eocene Epoch, some 50 million years ago, when Antarctica broke away and drifted southward.

A．dying out as Puritan influence began to grow
B．self-consciously and distinctively Southern
C．more characteristic of the Southern colonies than of England
D．spreading to Massachusetts and Connecticut

A．refuting a claim about the influence of Puritan culture on the early American South
B．refuting a thesis about the distinctiveness of the culture of the early American South
C．refuting the two premises that underlie Davis' discussion of the culture of the American
D．challenging the hypothesis that early American culture was homogeneous in nature