Discoveries

April 19, 2024

Waterhole Routes

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The Toba super-eruption 74,000 years ago left a lake 62 miles long and 1,600 feet deep in Indonesia, a testament to the largest known natural disaster in the last 2.5 million years – its effects were felt around the globe.

For decades, the common belief has been that it nearly wiped out humanity.

Now, findings at an archaeological site in Ethiopia may suggest that our ancestors were able to adapt to the radical changes in climate, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

A study revealed that humans in the Horn of Africa started eating more fish during dry periods linked to the Toba eruption.

The scientists discovered and dated fossil mammoth teeth and ostrich eggshells at the Shinfa-Metema 1 site, which helped them establish that people lived in the area before and after the blast, 4,000 miles away.

Compared with other contemporaneous sites, there was an unusually large amount of fish there. This suggested that humans fished more as waterholes became shallower because of drought induced by the eruption.

Fishing is a more “sophisticated behavior” than hunting animals, the researchers said, arguing that humans 70 millennia ago already had the behavioral flexibility we enjoy today.

This may have helped these individuals migrate out of Africa. Previous research posited that our ancestors took advantage of humid periods to move to other continents. However, the Shinfa-Metema 1 findings suggest they may also have embarked upon their migratory journeys during dry periods, moving from one small waterhole to another.

The theory has left researchers in the field divided because of the short-term character of Toba’s effects on climate.

This story originally appeared in the April 19, 2024 newsletter, Kitchen-Table Politics.