Earliest Known Human TB Found In 9,000 Year-old Skeletons

The Skeletons submerged at the Alit-Yam site.
(Credit: Image courtesy of University College London)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2008) — The discovery of the earliest known cases of human tuberculosis (TB) in bones found submerged off the coast of Israel shows that the disease is 3000 years older than previously thought. Direct examination of this ancient DNA confirms the latest theory that bovine TB evolved later than human TB.

The new research, led by scientists from UCL (University College London) and Tel-Aviv University and published today in PLoS One, sheds light on how the TB bacterium has evolved over the millennia and increases our understanding of how it may change in the future.

The bones, thought to be of a mother and baby, were excavated from Alit-Yam, a 9000 year-old Pre-Pottery Neolithic village, which has been submerged off the coast of Haifa, Israel for thousands of years. Professor Israel Hershkovitz, from Tel-Aviv University's Department of Anatomy, noticed the characteristic bone lesions that are signs of TB in skeletons from the settlement, one of the earliest with evidence of domesticated cattle.

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