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Frozen World is a four-part History Channel mini-series about the Ice Age. The History Channel tends to have a sensationalistic bent to a lot of its programming. That’s one way of saying that they like history to come alive. This series begins with the battle between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal human cavemen 40,000 years ago in Clash of the Cavemen. It outlines the differences between these totally different kinds of humans. The Neanderthal is stronger. The Cro-Magnon is smarter. The scientists are just beginning to differentiate between the DNA’s of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. We know little about them except they were more brutish and animal like. The Neanderthals had to travel at the time when the ice pushed them south into Germany. Leading scientists are interviewed on the many differences between the two types of humans that led to the eventual extinction of the Neanderthals.

The second installment is called Volcanic Winter. It deals with a massive volcanic explosion 75,000 years ago that shrouded the world in ash and smoke. It details the earth-changing climatic shift caused by the event. The volcano was called Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. This explosion was 3,000 times bigger than Mount Saint Helens. There has not been a volcano since that has ever been even a small fraction as massive. The closest was another Indonesian explosion in 1815 at Mount Tambora. It was called the year without a summer. Strangely, after the effects of the massive volcanic explosion 75,000 years ago subsided, then a 1,000-year ice age took hold. Once the climate change was established, it fed on itself. Some scientists suggest that the climatic shift was already happening naturally and this event just added a catalyst. Also worth noting is that there are many potential super volcanoes that potentially exists even today. The biggest potential threat is in Yellowstone National Park.