Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Wed 06 May 2009 16:39 Post subject: History Channel's show on Toba super-volcano
I watched this last night, and it was informative. It seems as though the world's population of one million Homo Sapiens was reduced to scattered populations totaling about 30,000, after the eruption. However, it did not go into detail about where these remaining populations existed. The program seemed to suggest survival was only in Africa, though I don't believe this was explicitly stated. If humans survived only in Africa, how would the M203 problem be explained? M203 exists in the Horn of Africa, and in the Far East, and one of the theories is that the Toba eruption wiped out the population carrying this marker in-between those areas.
They essentially finessed the issue. About 40 minutes into the show, they showed a stain (representing humanity) spreading out of Africa into Asia just as Toba erupts. The narrator said "... and perhaps some had already migrated into Asia... ". The show's focus then shifted back to Africa.
The strongest evidence for the diaspora preceding Toba is, as you point out, the M203 discontinuity. The strongest evidence for Toba preceding the diaspora is the very fact of the diaspora by a species that was underpopulated. Why else would we have left Africa, if not as a desperate trek for survival in a world that had suddenly become lethal?
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