[SamBam]

I feel like either I am very confused about something, or the author is:

> the population of humans dropped to as few as 50 individuals. Something terrible happened to the human race.

> When did this population bottleneck occur? A number of teams have analyzed mutation rates to find out. The mutation rate in our Y chromosomes suggests the bottleneck occurred 37,000 to 49,000 years ago.

Is the author really suggesting that the human population was down to 50 individuals 50,000 years ago?

How on earth does this square with human migration? Humans were already spreading near Australia 50,000 years ago, let alone Europe and Asia.

Is he suggesting that all the fossils throughout Eurasia and near Oceania were deposited by earlier humans, then nearly every human on the planet died at the same time, and then the survivors all re-spread to those areas, without leaving any archeological evidence of this?

[rjsw]

> Is the author really suggesting that the human population was down to 50 individuals 50,000 years ago?

The theory [1] has been around for a while.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

[SamBam]

10,000 humans across the globe following a large volcanic event is quite different from a huddling tribe of 50 humans following Neanderthal predation.

[realsimplesynd]

I've heard it used as an explanation for our species level sense of camaraderie and cooperation. A near extinction event may have been one of the best things to ever happen to us. (I don't entirely agree, but it's an interesting thought)

[3r8riacz]

This part almost feels like confirming Noah's Ark