ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Volcanic ash layers illuminate the resilience of Neanderthals and early modern humans to natural hazards.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neandertal demise: an archaeological analysis of the modern human superiority complex.PloS one · 2014Pooled it
- Fine ash from the Campanian Ignimbrite super-eruption, ~ 40 ka, southern Italy: implications for dispersal mechanisms and health hazard.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A pre-Campanian Ignimbrite techno-cultural shift in the Aurignacian sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita, southern Italy.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Identification of the Campanian Ignimbrite in the Dead Sea and consequent time-transgressive hydroclimatic shifts in the Eastern Mediterranean.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Community established best practice recommendations for tephra studies-from collection through analysis.Scientific data · 2022Article
- Neanderthals on the Lower Danube: Middle Palaeolithic evidence in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans.Journal of quaternary science · 2022Article
- Regional impacts of climate change and its relevance to human evolution.Evolutionary human sciences · 2020Review
- Article
- Article
- Understanding the plume dynamics of explosive super-eruptions.Nature communications · 2018Article
- Chronological reassessment of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition and Early Upper Paleolithic cultures in Cantabrian Spain.PloS one · 2018Article
- From Neandertals to modern humans: New data on the Uluzzian.PloS one · 2018Article
- Shift of large-scale atmospheric systems over Europe during late MIS 3 and implications for Modern Human dispersal.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- High-precisionScientific reports · 2017Article
- Tracing the influence of Mediterranean climate on Southeastern Europe during the past 350,000 years.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Cryptotephras: the revolution in correlation and precision dating.Journal of quaternary science · 2015Article
- Article
- The Campanian Ignimbrite eruption: new data on volcanic ash dispersal and its potential impact on human evolution.PloS one · 2013Article
- The earliest modern human colonization of Europe.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2012Article
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Abstract
Marked changes in human dispersal and development during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition have been attributed to massive volcanic eruption and/or severe climatic deterioration. We test this concept using records of volcanic ash layers of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption dated to ca. 40,000 y ago (40 ka B.P.). The distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite has been enhanced by the discovery of cryptotephra deposits (volcanic ash layers that are not visible to the naked eye) in archaeological cave sequences. They enable us to synchronize archaeological and paleoclimatic records through the period of transition from Neanderthal to the earliest anatomically modern human populations in Europe. Our results confirm that the combined effects of a major volcanic eruption and severe climatic cooling failed to have lasting impacts on Neanderthals or early modern humans in Europe. We infer that modern humans proved a greater competitive threat to indigenous populations than natural disasters.
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