Popular theory of ‘volcanic winter’ killing early humans is at the centre of debate over climate and evolution
- Chinese palaeoanthropologists dispute long-held notion that Toba eruption 74,000 years ago wiped out populations
- The origin of modern humans is more likely affected by a number of factors, including interactions between groups, rather than one event, says archaeologist
Up to 3,000 cubic kilometres of mass were thrown up, releasing an amount of energy equivalent to 300,000 Hiroshima bombs.
According to a prevailing theory, the Toba eruption caused a “volcanic winter” that wiped out early humans, sparing only a few lucky survivors in Eastern Africa, who became the direct ancestors of every human being today.
A recent study by a team of Chinese palaeoanthropologists found the theory, which has captured the public imagination for more than two decades with “tantalising simplicity”, could be rubbish.
“It is time to relegate this hypothesis to the dustbin of history,” said the researchers led by Professor Gao Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, in a peer-reviewed-paper published in the journal Quaternary International in July.
Gao and colleagues analysed geological data and fossil records collected in China and other parts of the world in recent years. They found no evidence of abrupt disruption to human activities during and after the eruption of Toba. In China, Europe or even India, life appeared to continue without apparent interruption, according to Gao and his colleagues.