The 74 ka Toba super-eruption and southern Indian hominins: archaeology, lithic technology and environments at Jwalapuram Locality 3

Haslam, Michael; Clarkson, Chris; Petraglia, Michael D.; Korisettar, Ravi; Jones, Sacha; Shipton, Ceri; Ditchfield, Peter; Ambrose, Stanley H.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.07.034

Cited by 51 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…For these authors, modern humans did not actually enter India until the time marked by the glacial climate of MIS 4. On the other hand, some core and flake industries in India have been considered as a link between those present in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia and Australia [132–134]. Core sites in India with ages around 77 ky would be compatible with an early dispersal of modern humans from Africa.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carriers of human mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonized India from southeastern Asia

et al. 2016

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BackgroundFrom a mtDNA dominant perspective, the exit from Africa of modern humans to colonize Eurasia occurred once, around 60 kya, following a southern coastal route across Arabia and India to reach Australia short after. These pioneers carried with them the currently dominant Eurasian lineages M and N. Based also on mtDNA phylogenetic and phylogeographic grounds, some authors have proposed the coeval existence of a northern route across the Levant that brought mtDNA macrohaplogroup N to Australia. To contrast both hypothesis, here we reanalyzed the phylogeography and respective ages of mtDNA haplogroups belonging to macrohaplogroup M in different regions of Eurasia and Australasia.ResultsThe macrohaplogroup M has a historical implantation in West Eurasia, including the Arabian Peninsula. Founder ages of M lineages in India are significantly younger than those in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Near Oceania. Moreover, there is a significant positive correlation between the age of the M haplogroups and its longitudinal geographical distribution. These results point to a colonization of the Indian subcontinent by modern humans carrying M lineages from the east instead the west side.ConclusionsThe existence of a northern route, previously proposed for the mtDNA macrohaplogroup N, is confirmed here for the macrohaplogroup M. Both mtDNA macrolineages seem to have differentiated in South East Asia from ancestral L3 lineages. Taking this genetic evidence and those reported by other disciplines we have constructed a new and more conciliatory model to explain the history of modern humans out of Africa.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-016-0816-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carriers of human mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonized India from southeastern Asia

et al. 2016

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“…The Toba super-eruption in Sumatra (ca. 74 ka; [46]) seems to have induced few changes in hunter-gatherer adaptations in, for example, the distal Jurreru Valley in India [82], [83], even though ashfall there was also substantial. However, despite being one of the largest volcanic events during the late Pleistocene, Toba is perhaps not the most appropriate analogy for the effects of the CI super-eruption [48], since the equatorial location of the eruption result in tephra predominantly falling over the ocean would have induced different environmental impacts [48], [85]; furthermore, the temporal resolution of the archaeological record there is low [48].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption: New Data on Volcanic Ash Dispersal and Its Potential Impact on Human Evolution

et al. 2013

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The Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) volcanic eruption was the most explosive in Europe in the last 200,000 years. The event coincided with the onset of an extremely cold climatic phase known as Heinrich Event 4 (HE4) approximately 40,000 years ago. Their combined effect may have exacerbated the severity of the climate through positive feedbacks across Europe and possibly globally. The CI event is of particular interest not only to investigate the role of volcanism on climate forcing and palaeoenvironments, but also because its timing coincides with the arrival into Europe of anatomically modern humans, the demise of Neanderthals, and an associated major shift in lithic technology. At this stage, however, the degree of interaction between these factors is poorly known, based on fragmentary and widely dispersed data points. In this study we provide important new data from Eastern Europe which indicate that the magnitude of the CI eruption and impact of associated distal ash (tephra) deposits may have been substantially greater than existing models suggest. The scale of the eruption is modelled by tephra distribution and thickness, supported by local data points. CI ashfall extends as far as the Russian Plain, Eastern Mediterranean and northern Africa. However, modelling input is limited by very few data points in Eastern Europe. Here we investigate an unexpectedly thick CI tephra deposit in the southeast Romanian loess steppe, positively identified using geochemical and geochronological analyses. We establish the tephra as a widespread primary deposit, which blanketed the topography both thickly and rapidly, with potentially catastrophic impacts on local ecosystems. Our discovery not only highlights the need to reassess models for the magnitude of the eruption and its role in climatic transition, but also suggests that it may have substantially influenced hominin population and subsistence dynamics in a region strategic for human migration into Europe.

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“…Issues surrounding the initial modern human colonization of the geographically pivotal region of southern Asia have generated intense controversy in the recent genetic and archaeological literature (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13).…”

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“…2). The second, more recently proposed view, is that there was a much earlier dispersal of modern humans from Africa sometime before 74 ka (and conceivably as early as 120-130 ka), reaching southern Asia before the time of the volcanic "supereruption" of Mount Toba in Sumatra (the largest volcanic eruption of the past 2 million y) at ∼74 ka (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6).…”

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“…Technologically, all of these assemblages are of characteristically Middle Paleolithic form [attributed by the excavators to a generalized "Indian Middle Paleolithic tradition" (1)], broadly similar to those documented across a wide region of both Europe and western Asia over a similar span of time (18). The claim that these industries provide evidence for an early arrival of modern humans from Africa before 74 ka rests crucially on analyses of two small samples of residual "core" forms recovered from below the Toba ash-fall deposits (at Jwalapuram sites 3 and 22), compared with those from a broadly contemporaneous range of Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites in other regions of Eurasia and Africa (1,4,6). For reasons discussed fully in Archaeology, we regard these analyses as seriously flawed on both archaeological and methodological grounds, and the interpretation originally offered for these assemblages has since been withdrawn by the author responsible for the lithic analyses, who "now thinks they might be the work of an unidentified population of archaic people" (ref.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Genetic and archaeological perspectives on the initial modern human colonization of southern Asia

Mellars

Gori

Carr

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

251

230

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It has been argued recently that the initial dispersal of anatomically modern humans from Africa to southern Asia occurred before the volcanic "supereruption" of the Mount Toba volcano (Sumatra) at ∼74,000 y before present (B.P.)-possibly as early as 120,000 y B.P. We show here that this "pre-Toba" dispersal model is in serious conflict with both the most recent genetic evidence from both Africa and Asia and the archaeological evidence from South Asian sites. We present an alternative model based on a combination of genetic analyses and recent archaeological evidence from South Asia and Africa. These data support a coastally oriented dispersal of modern humans from eastern Africa to southern Asia ∼60-50 thousand years ago (ka). This was associated with distinctively African microlithic and "backed-segment" technologies analogous to the African "Howiesons Poort" and related technologies, together with a range of distinctively "modern" cultural and symbolic features (highly shaped bone tools, personal ornaments, abstract artistic motifs, microblade technology, etc.), similar to those that accompanied the replacement of "archaic" Neanderthal by anatomically modern human populations in other regions of western Eurasia at a broadly similar date.India | Paleolithic | archaeogenetics | mtDNA

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The 74 ka Toba super-eruption and southern Indian hominins: archaeology, lithic technology and environments at Jwalapuram Locality 3

Cited by 51 publications

References 39 publications

Carriers of human mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonized India from southeastern Asia

Carriers of human mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonized India from southeastern Asia

The Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption: New Data on Volcanic Ash Dispersal and Its Potential Impact on Human Evolution

Genetic and archaeological perspectives on the initial modern human colonization of southern Asia

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