Ice World - A Tale of Human Survival

Today on Far Future Horizons we venture back in time some twenty-four thousand years to witness an epic tale of human survival during the last Ice Age.

We join a small band of ancient Europeans teetering on the brink of annihilation as they struggle with the most extreme living conditions anyone has ever faced, from encroaching sheets of ice that swallowed every bit of fertile land to a climate that was, on average, seventy degrees colder than it is today.

Stone Age Apocalypse

Human evolution is believed to have begun some six million years ago. Yet, despite the passage of so much time, the diversity of the DNA genetic code of all humans is minute.

Some Seventy-five thousand years ago, something apocalyptic occurred that left relative few humans alive to carry on the species.

The cause of this bottleneck is now believed to have been a massive volcanic eruption on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

A super-eruption from the site of Lake Toba in Sumatra blasted out more than two hundred cubic miles of ash over an area of over a million square miles.

Today on Far Future Horizons we present two documentary features concerning this prehistoric mega disaster: Naked Science - Stone Age Apocalypse and PBS NOVA’s Mystery of the Megavolcano.

Ice Age Meltdown

Today on Far Future Horizons we travel back in time some twenty thousand years to witness a major climatic upheaval, an Ice Age Meltdown.

Twenty thousand years ago there was a sudden change in climate which ends a global freeze which had lasted for several thousands of years. Melting ice caps drive up sea levels to create coastlines we recognize today and great glaciers thaw dramatically tore-sculpture the landscape.

A mass extinction took place and as the human race adapted to these breath taking changes to their familiar environment, the seeds of our modern society were sown.