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kokopelli
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30 Jun 2025, 5:01 am

You want it from Nature?

How about https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25967:

Quote:
Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba eruption about 74,000 years ago

... Humans in this region thrived through the Toba event and the ensuing full glacial conditions, perhaps as a combined result of the uniquely rich resource base of the region and fully evolved modern human adaptation.


From https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618220303335:
Quote:
The ~74 ka Toba super-eruption was the largest known explosive volcanic event of the past 2.5 million years and has been held responsible for presumed dramatic global cooling and large-scale hominin extinction. The hypothesis that the Toba super-eruption resulted in human extinction outside of tropical Africa has been cited as a mechanism to support models of a Middle Pleistocene African origin for modern humans. This hypothesis has prevailed for decades and drawn the attention of researchers from many fields. Recently, this proposition has been debated or refuted because of the development of more precise dating techniques and higher-resolution geological records that provide new data to reevaluate the climatic influence of the Toba event. Relevant archaeological evidence also indicates the survival of hominin groups in Eurasia immediately after the Toba event, even in India and Sumatra, which were covered by thick deposits of volcanic ash. Here, we correlate high-resolution geological records with the most precise available ages for the Toba event (ca. 74 ka), including ice cores, stalagmites, and lake and deep-sea sediments, concluding only limited influence of the Toba super-eruption on the Earth's climate. We also assemble archaeological data demonstrating continuity of human activity before and after the Toba event, ancient DNA and fossil evidences also testify the survival of other archaic humans after the eruption. The preponderance of the evidence dictates rejection of previous “population bottleneck” hypotheses and the total replacement model for the origins of modern humans. Although the Toba super-eruption was the largest such event of the Quaternary period, it did not have a devastating impact on the Earth's climate and human activity.


Yeah, there was a supervolcano eruption, but it seems questionable that it caused a population bottleneck.



Double Retired
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30 Jun 2025, 11:03 am

I'm not too concerned with whether or not causes of one or two distant past mass extinctions might repeat.

I'm more concerned that due to mankind's use of fossil fuels (and other assaults on the biosphere) we may cause a mass extinction that is not a replay of a past mass extinction. There are hints this may have started.

The only good news is that using technology we might be able to avoid mankind's extinction.


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cyberdora
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30 Jun 2025, 5:30 pm

^^^ In the early 1960s the scientific community believed in the population bomb, whereby food shortages would lead to mass starvation. Famous experiments like "Mouse city" predicted human population would over-use their resources leading to population crash by the 1990s. None of them could have predicted how agricultural/food tech would create abundance, and how the birth rate decline would actually be more associated with prosperity in rich countries, whereas poverty actually has accelerated birth rates.

I am sure technology will keep humanity going.



cyberdora
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30 Jun 2025, 5:35 pm

kokopelli wrote:
How about https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25967:
Quote:
Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba eruption about 74,000 years ago


Keep in mind most of Homo sapiens lived in Africa 74,000 years ago. All I am saying is the eruption resulted in a bottleneck and likely triggered mass migration of survivors out of north Africa to search for new lands.