The super eruption of the Toba volcano was one of the most colossal volcanic events of the last two million years ; approximately 5,000 times larger than the Mount Santa Elena eruption in the 1980s ( which had a magnitude 5 volcanic explosivity index ).
The eruption took place 74,000 years ago on the island of Sumatra and is said to have ushered in a “volcanic winter” that lasted six to ten years, leading to a cooling of the Earth’s surface that lasted for 1,000 years. The theory stated that, among other catastrophes, this would have caused the disappearance of the hominid and mammalian populations in Asia, and the near extinction of our own species. Now a team of scientists has presented evidence that Middle Palaeolithic tool users were present in India before and after this super eruption, so modern humans would have survived this “volcanic winter” thanks to their adaptation and ingenuity. in times of climatic catastrophe.
Toba’s superuption was not as apocalyptic as believed
The study shows a unique 80,000-year-old stratigraphic record from the Dhaba site in the northern Middle Valley of India. Stone tools discovered at Dhaba in association with the time of the Toba event provide strong evidence that Middle Palaeolithic populations were present in India before and after 74,000 years ago.
“The Dhaba populations used stone tools similar to those used by Homo sapiens in Africa at the same time,” explains archaeologist Chris Clarkson of the University of Queensland. “The fact that these toolkits did not disappear at the time of the Toba super-eruption or changed dramatically soon after, indicates that human populations survived the catastrophe and continued to create tools to modify their environment.”
If the dates are correct, it really doesn’t matter who sculpted the tools. And despite the work of Homo sapiens or other ancient hominids, the populations that resided in Dhaba were not wiped out by the Toba eruption.
India is a “critical geographic crossword” for understanding how early Homo sapiens spread from Africa to Asia and beyond. This new archaeological evidence supports fossil evidence that humans migrated from Africa and spread across Eurasia before 60,000 years ago. It also supports genetic findings that humans interbred with archaic hominin species, such as Neanderthals, before then.
Long-term debate
This work, published in the journal Nature, contradicts the theory that the few Homo sapiens that survived in Africa during this time developed social, symbolic and economic strategies that allowed them to re-expand into Asia 14,000 years after the eruption. As it was, humans in India resisted the eruption, even though they eventually died later and did not contribute to modern gene pools.
“The archaeological record shows that although humans sometimes show a remarkable level of resilience to challenges, it is also clear that they did not always thrive in the long term,” Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute said in a statement.
Referencia: Chris Clarkson, Clair Harris, Bo Li, Christina M. Neudorf, Richard G. Roberts, Christine Lane, Kasih Norman, Jagannath Pal, Sacha Jones, Ceri Shipton, Jinu Koshy, M.C. Gupta, D.P. Mishra, A.K. Dubey, Nicole Boivin, and Michael Petraglia. Human occupation of northern India spans the Toba super-eruption ~74,000 years ago. Nature Communications, 2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14668-4
