Eruption early in human prehistory may have been more whimper than bang

If Hollywood’s right, the apocalypse will be brutal. Aliens, nuclear war, zombies, plague, enslavement by supersmart robots — none of them are good endings. Some archaeologists, however, believe an apocalypse has already come and gone. About 75,000 years ago, they say, a monster volcanic eruption nearly wiped out humankind, leaving behind only a few thousand people to repopulate the world.