The Toba supereruption on the island of Sumatra about 74,000 years ago did not cause a six-year-long ‘volcanic winter’ in East Africa and thereby cause the human population in the region to plummet, according to new research based on an analysis of ancient plant remains from lake cores. The new findings disagree with the Toba catastrophe hypothesis, which says the eruption and its aftermath caused drastic, multi-year cooling and severe ecological disruption in East Africa.