[Article] Volcanic mud threatens Prambanan Temple.

17 jan. 2011 | The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta by Slamet Susanto

Powerful flows of volcanic mud carried by rivers from Mount Merapi that have destroyed bridges, houses, farmlands and other structures along river banks also pose a threat to the Prambanan Temple.
The famous Hindu temple complex, located in Prambanan on the border of Yogyakarta and
Central Java provinces, sits 100 meters from the banks of the Opak River, a confluence of the Petit Opak and Gendol Rivers that flow from Mt. Merapi.
Prambanan, a ninth-century Hindu temple compound — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia and one of the largest Hindu temples in Southeast Asia.
In 1006, large eruptions on Mt. Merapi covered the Buddist temple of Borobudur in Magelang, Central Java, in ash, where it lay hidden for centuries under ash and jungle growth.
An  official from the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center (BPPTK) in Yogyakarta, Dewi S. Sayudi, said the threat to Prambanan was immense because the upper streams of both the Opak and Gendol Rivers carried large amounts of volcanic debris from the 2010 Mt. Merapi eruptions.
“The lahar that we have seen so far is just the tip. The flows carry only a small portion of the thick layers of volcanic debris from the slopes of Merapi,” Dewi said recently.
The eruptions in October and November, Merapi’s most powerful in a century, were estimated to
have spewed more than 150 million cubic meters of volcanic debris consisting of large rocks, stones, sand and ash.

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Yogyakarta’s Temples in the Firing Line of Lahar Floods
18 jan. 2011 | The Jakarta Globe by Candra Malik

Yogyakarta. Lahar, the cold volcanic debris flowing down the slopes of Mount Merapi, is not only threatening houses and infrastructure but also archeological sites, a geologist said on Tuesday.
Subandrio, head of the Volcano Investigation and Technology Development Institution (BPPTK), said a team of geologists and archaeologists was evaluating the physical condition of temples located near the paths of the lahar runoff from Merapi.
“According to a letter from the Archaeological Heritage Conservation Center of Central Java, we have to give particular attention to the safety of Prambanan Temple and other temples in the complex,” he said.

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[Article] Volcanic Ash a Threat to Borobudur.

October 29, 2010 | The Jakarta Globe | by Associated Press

A worker dusting volcanic ash off a statue at Borobudur temple. Volcanic ash is threatening one of Indonesia's most popular tourist attractions, officials said on Friday. (Antara Photo)

Yogyakarta. Volcanic ash that has fallen like heavy rain onto a 9th-century temple complex is threatening one of Indonesia's most popular tourist attractions, officials said Friday.
Parts of the famed Borobudur temples have been closed to the public so workers can clean off the blanket of white ash from Mount Merapi, which began erupting Tuesday.
Antiquities experts are concerned the acidic soot will speed the decay of the stones, said Marsis Sutopo, head of the temple conservation office.
Visitors can still enter the outside yard to the temples but won't be able to go inside the gates until at least next week, officials said. A Mahakarya Borobudur traditional dance performance will go on as scheduled Saturday.

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[Article] New archaeological sites reveal life after ancient Toba eruption.

Tuesday February 23, 2010 | The Star

LONDON: Newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago, according to Press Trust of India (PTI) on Tuesday.

The international and multidisciplinary research team, led by Oxford University in collaboration with Indian institutions, has uncovered what it calls 'Pompeii-like excavations' beneath the Toba ash.
The seven-year project examines the environment that humans lived in, their stone tools, as well as the plants and animal bones of the time.
"This suggests that human populations were present in India prior to 74,000 years ago, or about 15,000 years earlier than expected based on some genetic clocks," said project director Michael Petraglia, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford.
The team has concluded that many forms of life survived the super-eruption, contrary to other research that has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks.
According to the team, a potentially ground-breaking implication of the new work is that the species responsible for making the stone tools in India was Homo sapiens.
Stone tool analysis has revealed that the artefacts consist of cores and flakes, which are classified in India as Middle Palaeolithic and are similar to those made by modern humans in Africa.
"Though we are still searching for human fossils to definitively prove the case, we are encouraged by the technological similarities.
Toba is in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia and an area of widespread speculation about the Toba super-eruption is that it nearly drove humanity to extinction.
The fact that the Middle Palaeolithic tools of similar styles are found right before and after the Toba super-eruption, suggests that the people who survived the eruption were the same populations, using the same kinds of tools, says Petraglia.
The research agrees with evidence that other human ancestors, such as the Neanderthals in Europe and the small brained Hobbits in Southeastern Asia, continued to survive well after Toba.
Although some scholars have speculated that the Toba volcano led to severe and wholesale environmental destruction, the Oxford-led research in India suggests that a mosaic of ecological settings was present, and some areas experienced a relatively rapid recovery after the volcanic event.
The team has not discovered much bone in Toba ash sites, but in the Billasurgam cave complex in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, the researchers have found deposits which they believe range from at least 100,000 years ago to the present.
They contain a wealth of animal bones such as wild cattle, carnivores and monkeys.
They have also identified plant materials in the Toba ash sites and caves, yielding important information about the impact of the Toba super-eruption on the ecological settings. - Bernama (Read the article here).

More informations :

- Ancient 'Volcanic Winter' Tied To Rapid Genetic Divergence In Humans | ScienceDaily | Sep. 8, 1998

- Toba Volcano | by George Weber | original article (feb. 2006).

- Paleoanthropology in the 1990's - Population Bottlenecks and Volcanic Winter | Essays by James Q. Jacobs | 2000

- Volcan Toba | Activ (Association pour la connaissance et la transmission de l'information en Volcanologie).