Re: Total number of humans in the past 150,000 years


G. A. Edgar wrote:
> > 2. the population growth rate is 1.0%/year
> > 3. the population now is exactly 6B
>
> From just these two we can compute that
> the population was 1 just 2263 years ago
> by solving (1.01)^N = 6*10^9 for N.
>
> --
> G. A. Edgar http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/

There's genetic evidence that in about 75,000 BC the total
world human population dipped catastrophically to no more
than around 10,000, due to the eruption of a super-volcano
in Indonesia. Quoting from
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/The-end-is-nigh/2005/04/17/1113676644061.html?oneclick=true

"The most damaging super-volcano in human history was Toba,
on Sumatra, Indonesia, 74,000 years ago. Because it was
fairly close to the equator it injected gas quickly into
both hemispheres. Ice-core data shows that temperatures
were dramatically reduced for five to six years afterwards,
with freezing conditions right down to the tropics."

Curiously entomologists studying the genes of lice have
also deduced that the human head louse and body louse,
now two species, split from a common ancestor at about
the same time, 75,000 BC, and they infer that this was
when humans first started wearing clothes such as animal
skins etc.

So presumably our ancestors were the few people who had
the sense to wrap up warm in the freezing weather brought
about by the volcano!

.