This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new international study led by Lund University examines what happened to population levels after the Kikai-Akahoya volcanic eruption in prehistoric Japan. The results paint a more complex picture than what had previously been believed.
The paper is published in the journal Science Advances. The Kikai-Akahoya eruption took place in Japan some 7,300 years ago. At the time, Jomon foraging communities lived in Japan, surviving as hunter-gatherers.
"This eruption must have been devastating, exploding out of the seabed with little warning. It battered the Japanese islands with powerful earthquakes and enormous tsunamis, and then blanketed the landscape with meters of volcanic ash," explains senior author Peter Jordan, professor of archaeology at Lund University. The consequences of the eruption have been widely debated by archaeologists for decades.
Some argue that it was an 'apocalypse' in which all human life abruptly ended closest to the epicenter, while others have started to argue for the survival of local populations, even in areas quite close to the eruption. The research team found that both these versions—total collapse or continuity—were too simplistic. On the one hand, populations did decline, as ecosystems suffered and areas became uninhabitable.
On the other hand, the researchers found evidence that humans were resourceful in the face of dire circumstances. In some cases, the population increased in the period after the eruption. "The disaster caused major loss of life.
However, survivors migrated, forged new social relations, innovated new kinds of economy, and appear to have found creative ways to exist and later thrive in the new post-disaster conditions," says lead author Enrico Crema, professor at Cambridge University. According to Jordan, the research demonstrates how unpredictable and complex the aftermath of a major disaster can be. "This study helps in creating a deeper understanding of the contingent ways in which cultures and societies cope with sudden shocks and catastrophes.
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