According to a new archaeological evidence found at Dhaba, on the banks of the Middle Son River in Madhya Pradesh, a significant population in South Asia survived the destructive explosion of Indonesia’s Toba volcano 74,000 years ago.
Facts
- The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
- The new study debunks the long-held theory that the Indonesia’s Mount Toba volcanic eruption led to the death of the majority human population.
- Researchers found evidence of the continuous presence of humans in this region between 80,000 years ago and 65,000 years ago.
- The lithic industry from Dhaba strongly resembles stone tool assemblages from the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Arabia, and the earliest artefacts from Australia, suggesting that it is likely the product of Homo sapiens as they dispersed eastward out of Africa.
About Mount Toba explosion theory
- The Toba super-eruption was one of the largest volcanic events over the last two million years, about 5,000 times larger than Mount St. Helen’s in Italy in 1981. The eruption occurred 74,000 years ago on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, and was argued to have ushered in a “volcanic winter” lasting six to ten years, leading to a 1,000 year-long cooling of the Earth’s surface.
- Theories purported that the volcanic eruption would have led to major catastrophes, including the decimation of hominin populations and mammal populations in Asia, and the near extinction of our own species. The few surviving Homo sapiens in Africa were said to have survived by developing sophisticated social, symbolic and economic strategies that enabled them to eventually re-expand and populate Asia 60,000 years ago in a single, rapid wave along the Indian Ocean coastline.
