Enrico Crema and colleagues used statistical models of radiocarbon and site data to track Jomon forager populations around the Kikai-Akahoya eruption about 7,300 years ago, one of the largest of the Holocene (VEI 7). They find a major population collapse in regions next to the volcano, but some nearby populations grew after the disaster, and some distant communities were hit by environmental effects that had been overlooked.
Moore, Thackeray, West and colleagues analysed nanoparticles in peat at Wonderkrater, where an earlier study found a platinum anomaly at about 12,800 years ago. They report a 4.6-fold rise in nanoparticle numbers in a 5 cm layer, with platinum-group-rich and rare-earth-rich particle populations, which they interpret as consistent with an extraterrestrial component plus extra terrestrial dust.
