Yellowstone, another "toba"
Yes, I am very aware of that situation. In fact my father wrote an entire, very long and wordy, novel on the subject. In it he postulates a man, like himself, becoming aware of the danger, and moving operations to the Carolina's. Then it blows and a whole lot of adventures after that. Some day I may take it and rewrite it and possibly get it published. Actually, his interest was one of the things that restimulated my active interest in volcanism.
Regarding Neanderthals, there were some recent FR threads about the discovery of some N genes in the Scottish population, and perhaps other northerners. About 40% of the population, and virtually all the redheads. My husband was Scottish ancestry, very redhead and blue eyed (a positive adaptation to diminished sunshine and Vitamin D formation), heavy brow ridges, large dense bones, short legs and long torso (good for cold climates), very hairy, and warrior temperment. I always thought he might have some neanderthal ancestry, and now I am almost certain. One of our sons has his size and density, but none of his coloring. He is currently in Afghanistan. One of our sons also has the same body density, like a pit bull, if you have ever felt one. I think some Ns may have interbread with other groups moving north, as the pale coloring would have had positive survival value until the blond gene showed up which has the same Vitamin D value, enabling women to develop broad childbirth friendly pelvises.
Regarding Flores person, I think that the island must have been much larger when the ice age ended, with the water 400 feet lower than now. As melting caused the sea to rise the people and other animals were forced into a smaller and smaller area, and miniturization enabled them to survive with fewer resources. I think other large animals also miniturized. I think this happened on Malta with elephants.
Ah yes, it's a pleasure to e-talk with an intelligent person as it's a real bore with some of the dufusses on FR. My nephew told me about FR, and he's "lexinom". I got BIT once by a pit bulldog, came THAT CLOSE to shooting the owner. I'm scotch-welsh-irish-english-german by ancestry but my mother does have red hair. The celts were originally based in austria, known as the keltoi by the greeks, and famed for their copper working skills. Some opine that there was no inter-breeding between homo-sap and Ns, too great a genetic distance apart. Still an open question. It may be that the celts were a homo-sap/N hybrid group and we see the results today as Arnold Swartzenegger!