"...modern humans numbered as few as 10,000 at some time in the last 100,000 years. The critically low number suggested that some catastrophe, like ...climate change.... had brought humans close to the brink of extinction.
Hmmm, standard Global Warming alarmist boiler-plate - don't journalists think for themselves anymore?
Yep...I winced at the latter also.
No, that’s not GW boilerplate. That’s a fact.. About 70,000 years ago, the Toba volcano erupted in the largest volcanic eruption presently known. It ejected 550 CUBIC KILOMETERS of rock into the air. It extinguished virtually all human life east of India, and most of Africa and the Middle East. Estimates that are pretty rock solid indicate that the human population of the Earth was reduced to less thaan 10,000 individuals, perhaps fewer than 5,000.
No joke. And this was not that long ago in geological terms. Much the same thing could happen again if the Yellowstone caldera goes up.
"...the strategy of investing in larger brains than those of their fellow apes had not yet produced any big payoff...."
*** Hmmm, standard Global Warming alarmist boiler-plate - don't journalists think for themselves anymore? ***
No. This is not about 'Globular Warming'.(sic)
It's a Financial Report on the NY Times.
;-)
The Supervolcano Toba effectively culled the herd and only the strongest survived. We would be hit harder if it happened today.
This bottleneck was likely the mount Toba eruption about 85000 years ago. We almost went extinct. The local isolated populations that survived and expanded likely became the different races, the reason why such distinct characteristics arose despite such a small and genetically uniform population.
Global warming from the end of the last age is what allowed a larger population. We need it to stay warm unless we want to risk a declining population with everyone fighting over non-freezing territory.