Human occupation of northern India spans the Toba super-eruption ~74,000 years ago

摘要

India is located at a critical geographic crossroads for understanding the dispersal of Homosapiens out of Africa and into Asia and Oceania. Here we report evidence for long-termhuman occupation, spanning the last ~80 thousand years, at the site of Dhaba in the MiddleSon River Valley of Central India. An unchanging stone tool industry is found at Dhabaspanning the Toba eruption of ~74 ka (i.e., the Youngest Toba Tuff, YTT) bracketed betweenages of 79.6 ± 3.2 and 65.2 ± 3.1 ka, with the introduction of microlithic technology ~48 ka.The lithic industry from Dhaba strongly resembles stone tool assemblages from the AfricanMiddle Stone Age (MSA) and Arabia, and the earliest artefacts from Australia, suggestingthat it is likely the product of Homo sapiens as they dispersed eastward out of Africa.