Genome Study Provides a Census of Early Humans

NY Times (Science Times) ^ | January 18, 2010 | NICHOLAS WADE

[John Valentine]

I think that one consideration to keep in mind is that the pre-Toba human population was very widely dispersed throughout Africa and Asia, at least, and maybe into Europe. There is no reason to think that in some of the societies located east of Toba might not have been quite successful and populous.

And, because the ash cloud went west, they would have not been directly affected by the ashfall. Of course, these societies might have been put under considerable stress by the cold temperatures worldwide in the years after the eruption, but maybe not lethally so.

It is also the case that most human populations east of Toba are mappable to the modern genome and area clearly the results of post Toba migrations starting maybe 50,000 years ago. Who knows what might have happened to the archaic populations the new arrivals might have found there?

[SunkenCiv]

• Human populations are tightly interwoven The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia...