Sentence Correction (SC) | Re: According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not

According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

Let's try to understand the sentence, as we glance through we come to know that the sentence tense is most probably past tense because of the words - was & merged. In the underlined portion as well we should be looking for an option that is in past tense.

Also, in comparison
...

---