When Humans Nearly Vanished Audiobook By Donald R. Prothero cover art

When Humans Nearly Vanished

The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

When Humans Nearly Vanished

By: Donald R. Prothero
Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.74

Buy for $17.74

Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade.

In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide. Human genes today show evidence of a "genetic bottleneck", an effect seen when a population of organisms becomes so small that their genetic diversity is greatly reduced. This group of survivors could be the ancestors of all humans alive today.

Prothero explores the geological and biological evidence supporting the Toba bottleneck theory, revealing how the explosion itself was discovered and offering insight into how the world changed afterward and what might happen if such an eruption occurred today.

©2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC Evolution & Genetics Biological Sciences Evolution Science Nature & Ecology Social Sciences Archaeology Outdoors & Nature Volcanoes For Kids
Fascinating Scientific Discoveries • Thorough Dna Examination • Excellent Scientific Explanations

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
I don’t know. This was mostly a collection things like the differences among the hominids, different extinction events,; less focus on the Tobu event than I expected. Could becreduced to a three-episode podcast. Learned stuff though.

Generally disappointed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
thank you for putting all of this info together into this book. there is a ton of great info that all humans need to know about. more people need to know about this stuff in order to be better humans.

excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you want to be deluged with facts, this is the book for you. The last chapter is the worst. There is everything we need to know but sometimes seems like a collection of index cards being read.

Alright

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Found the first half of the book great, but the second half of the book not so great. Lots of science based facts and information, but certain phrases used to describe history itselfs and others in the scientific community were condescending and disparaging.

Inconsistent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked the fact that the book did such a nice job explaining dna testing as well as the other major extinctions

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews