3 ms·

Didn't toba reduce humanity to something like 2000 people?

• stevenwoo 9y ago
  It's a pretty good hypothesis with some backing in the genetic record and the timing of the event, the wikipedia says somewhere between 2000-20000 breeding individuals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Not sure where humanity was on the evolution timeline for the last Yellowstone eruption, but our ancestors somehow got through that, too.
  • m_mueller 9y ago
    Wasn't it discredited with the finding of human remains above and below the ash layer in India?
    • stevenwoo 9y ago
      The wikipedia article mentions that there are similar stone tools above and below the ash layer in India so that it may be that the Toba eruption did not kill everyone in India even though it was local to India. So it could be could be coincidence on the timing of the Toba eruption and the genetic narrowing down of the human race at almost the same time. But something happened 70,000 years ago, if not Toba, what was it? Maybe the onset of the ice age + Toba + other things occurring close together in time.