The prevailing idea about the genetic bottleneck puts it on the Toba supervolcano erupting some 70,000 years ago which allegedly slaughtered the HSS community and reduced it to a relative handful of individuals living in East Afrcia and from whom all modern human are descended.
The obvious problem with the idea is that for a volcanic eruption it seems highly specialized. The Neanderthals don't seem to know that they were all killed. Worse, the megafauna, which did die off in North America some 60,000 years later from unknown causes, seems to have come through Toba unscathed. Now I am perfectly willing to accept that a monumental volcanic blast and subsequent "nuclear winter" scenario would significantly impact life. But no one would be getting an exemption from it. The effects would be world-wide as we have seen with much smaller volcanic events which triggered the Little Ice Age for example.
We see similar arguments from some of the creatards we have around here who insist their fucking flood story is real but then can't explain how the Egyptians kept building pyramids even though they had just been drowned. No.
The obvious problem with the idea is that for a volcanic eruption it seems highly specialized. The Neanderthals don't seem to know that they were all killed. Worse, the megafauna, which did die off in North America some 60,000 years later from unknown causes, seems to have come through Toba unscathed. Now I am perfectly willing to accept that a monumental volcanic blast and subsequent "nuclear winter" scenario would significantly impact life. But no one would be getting an exemption from it. The effects would be world-wide as we have seen with much smaller volcanic events which triggered the Little Ice Age for example.
We see similar arguments from some of the creatards we have around here who insist their fucking flood story is real but then can't explain how the Egyptians kept building pyramids even though they had just been drowned. No.
