一項(xiàng)新理論提出，遠(yuǎn)古人類可能在74000年前的超級火山爆發(fā)所引發(fā)的“火山冬季”中幸存下來

一項(xiàng)新理論提出，遠(yuǎn)古人類可能在74000年前的超級火山爆發(fā)所引發(fā)的“火山冬季”中幸存下來

Some 74,000 years ago, a volcanic super-eruption 5,000 times larger than Mount St. Helens spurred a “volcanic winter” that lasted up to a decade, resulting in a millennia-long cooling event across the planet that wiped out early human species and mammals alike.

大約7萬4千年前，一次比圣海倫斯火山大5000倍的火山超級噴發(fā)引發(fā)了長達(dá)10年的“火山冬季”，導(dǎo)致地球上數(shù)千年的降溫事件，使早期人類物種和哺乳動物都滅絕了。

Or so the theory went.

至少理論上是這樣的。

Now, new evidence presented in Nature Communications suggests that while the Toba Volcano eruption was one of the largest events to occur over the last 2 million years, it may not have wiped out early humans but instead proved the species to be adaptable and ingenious in times of climate catastrophe.

現(xiàn)在，《自然通訊》雜志提出的新證據(jù)表明，雖然多巴火山噴發(fā)是過去200萬年中發(fā)生的最大事件之一，它可能沒有消滅了早期人類,而是證明了物種適應(yīng)性和巧妙的氣候?yàn)?zāi)難。

Previous theories suggest that the volcanic eruption decimated early human populations, nearly forcing the extinction of humans. Under this theory, the few Homo sapiens that survived in Africa during this time developed social, symbolic, and economic strategies that enabled them to re-expand to Asia 14,000 years after the eruption. New work contradicts such theories, suggesting that humans in India were resilient to the volcano eruption – even though they ultimately died off later and did not contribute to modern gene pools.

先前的理論認(rèn)為，火山爆發(fā)摧毀了早期人類的數(shù)量，幾乎迫使人類滅絕。根據(jù)這一理論，在這一時期幸存于非洲的少數(shù)智人發(fā)展了社會、象征和經(jīng)濟(jì)戰(zhàn)略，使他們能夠在火山噴發(fā)1.4萬年后重新擴(kuò)張到亞洲。新的研究結(jié)果與這些理論相矛盾，表明印度的人類對火山爆發(fā)有很強(qiáng)的適應(yīng)能力——盡管他們后來最終滅絕了，也沒有對現(xiàn)代基因庫做出貢獻(xiàn)。

"The archaeological record demonstrates that although humans sometimes show a remarkable level of resilience to challenges, it is also clear that people did not necessarily always prosper over the long term,” said Professor Michael Petraglia, of the Max Planck Institute, in a statement.

馬克斯·普朗克研究所的邁克爾·佩特拉格利亞教授在一份聲明中說:“考古記錄表明，盡管人類有時表現(xiàn)出非凡的抗挑戰(zhàn)能力，但很明顯，從長遠(yuǎn)來看，人類不一定總是繁榮昌盛。”

Archaeologists at the Dhaba site in central India dated 13 sediment samples spanning an 80,000 year-long stratigraphic record from the Dhaba site in northern India’s Middle Son Valley, as well as found a rich collection of artifacts over a timeframe of 55,000 years surrounding the volcanic eruption. Stone tools discovered near the Toba eruption represent those from the African Middle Stone Age and some of the earliest artifacts from Australia, which suggests strong evidence that Middle Paleolithic tool-using populations were present in India before and after the eruption, filling a “major chronological gap” in human records.

考古學(xué)家在印度中部的達(dá)巴遺址發(fā)現(xiàn)了13個沉積物樣本，這些樣本覆蓋了印度北部中森谷達(dá)巴遺址長達(dá)8萬年的地層記錄，并在火山噴發(fā)前后的5.5萬年時間里發(fā)現(xiàn)了豐富的人工制品。在多巴火山噴發(fā)附近發(fā)現(xiàn)的石器代表了非洲中石器時代的石器，以及一些來自澳大利亞的最早的手工藝品，這有力地證明了舊石器時代中期使用石器的人群在火山噴發(fā)前后存在于印度，填補(bǔ)了人類記錄中“主要的年代空白”。

Stone tools found at the Dhaba site corresponding with the Toba volcanic super-eruption levels. Pictured here are diagnostic Middle Palaeolithic core types. Chris Clarkson

"Populations at Dhaba were using stone tools that were similar to the toolkits being used by Homo sapiens in Africa at the same time. The fact that these toolkits did not disappear at the time of the Toba super-eruption or change dramatically soon after indicates that human populations survived the so-called catastrophe and continued to create tools to modify their environments,” said lead author Professor Chris Clarkson of the University of Queensland.

“達(dá)巴的居民使用石器，類似于同一時期非洲智人使用的工具包。事實(shí)上，這些工具包在多巴超級噴發(fā)時并沒有消失，也沒有在不久后發(fā)生巨大變化，這表明人類在所謂的災(zāi)難中幸存了下來，并繼續(xù)創(chuàng)造工具來改變他們的環(huán)境，”昆士蘭大學(xué)的首席作者克里斯·克拉克森教授說。

Sediment analyses also suggest that the Earth’s cooling event following the Toba eruption may have been less extreme than previously hypothesized and may not have actually caused the glacial period that followed. The work supports the hypothesis that human populations were present in India 80,000 years ago and likely survived one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 2 million years.

沉積物分析還表明，多巴火山噴發(fā)后的地球降溫事件可能沒有之前假設(shè)的那么極端，也可能不是導(dǎo)致隨后冰川時期的真正原因。這項(xiàng)研究支持了這樣一種假設(shè)，即8萬年前印度就有人類，而且很可能在過去200萬年最大的一次火山爆發(fā)中幸存下來。

India is a “critical geographic crosswords” for understanding how early Homo sapiens dispersed out of Africa, into Asia and beyond. Fossil evidence from the study suggests that humans migrated out of Africa and expanded across Eurasia and interbred with ancient humans, like Neanderthals, before the end of the cooling event 60,000 years ago.

印度是一個“關(guān)鍵的地理填字游戲”，用來理解早期智人是如何從非洲分散到亞洲和其他地方的。來自該研究的化石證據(jù)表明，在6萬年前的降溫事件結(jié)束之前，人類走出非洲，向歐亞大陸擴(kuò)張，并與尼安德特人等古人類雜交。

Image shows the Dhaba site overlooking the Middle Son Valley, India. The archaeological trench is located on the left side of the photo. Christina Neudorf