“Volcanic Mega-Eruption? No Problem, How’ve You Been?” ca. 74,000 BC)
About 76,000 years ago, the volcano Toba – located in what is now Indonesia – erupted to create the largest and most devastating volcanic event of the past 2 million years. Almost 3,000 cubic kilometers of magma was spewed out, while sulfuric acid rained over the earth as far away as Greenland. The world became subject to a volcanic winter, and what followed was one of the most severe ice ages in documented history.
Over in India, the land was showered with 15 centimeters of volcanic ash, which can be seen today, working as a distinct age marker in the earth’s stratigraphy. And yet, contrary to all logic, archaeologists have unearthed assemblages of stone tools both above and below the ash deposit in India’s Jwalapuram Valley.
The tools look remarkably similar to those made by humans in Africa, which indicates that these tools were also human-formed – and yet, if humans were still in India after the depositing of ash (an incredible feat it itself), they would have had an extremely difficult time trying to survive. After all, the sheer magnitude of the eruption suspended both volcanic gas and sulfuric acid in the earth’s atmosphere for years, causing warm sunlight to be redirected away from Earth – and plunging the world into several centuries of temperatures that were at least 3-5 degrees C lower than normal after the event.
Along with the tools, a large piece of ochre was found – something that early humans used to create art, make symbols, cure animal hides, and sometimes help attach stone tool pieces to a wooden shaft. There are some archaeologists who are skeptical at the tool findings, believing that these did not come from what has been termed “modern” humans, but instead should possibly be attributed to an earlier hominid species – such as the European Neanderthals – which eventually died out.
While it is thought that humans had begun to develop the ability to make complex tools and form cohesive and sophisticated social behavior at this time, the notion that these early humans survived such a global catastrophe certainly paints a picture of the resilience and determined human instinct for survival that shows through human actions even today.
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