Teori bencana Toba ( Toba catastrophe theory )

The Toba eruption, (sometimes called the Toba supereruption or the Youngest Toba eruption) was a supervolcano eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the Earth's largest known explosive eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a severe global volcanic winter of six to ten years and contributed to a 1,000-year-long cooling episode, leading to a genetic bottleneck in humans.

A number of genetic studies revealed that 50,000 years ago human ancestor population greatly expanded from only a few thousand individuals. Science journalist Ann Gibbons posited that the low population size was caused by the Toba eruption. Geologist Michael R. Rampino of New York University and volcanologist Stephen Self of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa supported her suggestion. In 1998, the bottleneck theory was further developed by anthropologist Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. However, physical evidence refutes the links with millennium-long cold event and genetic bottleneck, and some consider the theory disproven.