Armageddon at the Dawn of Humanity: Volcanic Apocalypse

At the dawn of humanity, less than 75,000 years ago, a massive caldera erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, triggering a prolonged and devastating volcanic winter. How did our ancestors survive this apocalypse? The explosion of the Toba super volcano was Earth’s largest volcanic eruption in the past 28 million years. Parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Indian Ocean were covered by 6 inches of volcanic debris. An estimated 1,700 cubic miles of rock were detonated, forming a huge crater lake visible from space. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, modern human evolution was affected by the large volcanic event. Within the last three to five million years, after human and other ape lineages diverged from the early hominids, the human line produced a variety of human species. The massive volcanic eruption changed the course of human history, by severely reducing the human population, according to the theory. This occurred when the Toba caldera underwent a category 8 explosion on th