A quite interesting masterpiece of interactive education presents the Bradshaw Foundation in collaboration with Professor Stephen Oppenheimer.
The ‘Journey of Mankind’ shows the migration of humans from Africa 160.000 years ago to the present. Now inhabiting all continents Homo Sapiens suffered dramatically from Climate Change during this period.
The eruption of stratovolcano Toba in Sumatra, approximately 71,000 years ago, displaced 800 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash and produced enough smoke, plume and aerosols to cause a volcanic winter with no sun for six years and thus a 1000 years ice age. Apparently the population was reduced to about 10,000 adults. Only in a few tropical niches in Africa and Asia humans survived.
50,000 years later during the last Ice Age Europe and North America were de-populated and again only in few refuges small groups survived. Isolation over generations is a possible explanation for the human diversity in language, culture and genes.
While human genes gets recombinated due to sexual reproduction the ‘power plants’ of our cells called mitochondria have their own DNA. Therefore these endosymbionts enable researchers to have a detailed look at our family tree.
The profound synthesis of the mtDNA and Y chromosome evidence with archaeology, climatology and fossil study documents and visualizes perfectly the interrelation of Climate Change and migration.
Further readings: Caldera of Toba, Human Population Bottlenecks
Via: Great Map, Cartography
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