Supervolcano Eruption Reveals What Could Have Driven Humans Out of Africa
Contrary to what we may have assumed about the migration of modern humans out of Africa, at least some movement may have been driven, not by 'green corridors', but by privation.
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The 'green corridor' theory proposes that, as food resources expanded and became bountiful, humans expanded with them. Kappelman and his colleagues sought to investigate an alternative driving force behind the most recent, and most widespread, migration, which occurred sometime less than 100,000 years ago.
Their research focused on the Shinfa-Metema 1 archaeological site in what is now northwestern Ethiopia, investigating how the people there lived. There, they found stone tools, the bones of the animals the people consumed, the remnants of their cooking fires – and microscopic shards of volcanic glass, known as cryptotephra, that match the chemistry of the Toba eruption.
https://www.sciencealert.com/supervolcano-eruption-reveals-what-could-have-driven-humans-out-of-africa
It has long been known that small migrations began around 150,000 years ago and occurred sporadically, most groups' small size causing them to die out from inbreeding, if not disease and hostile fauna. The large migration out of east Africa began in earnest at the time of the Toba super eruption.
What this article dalks around but does not say is that the Toba eruption also put the robust Neandertal population just outside Africa on the ropes, too, and probably caused both species to pool their resources for the first time in a mutual struggle to survive.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
