“New Clues Uncovered in 10,000-Year-Old Cold Case of Tuberculosis: Hope for Ending the Deadliest Infectious Disease in Human History”

There are developments in a whopping 10,000-year-old cold case: Researchers have found new clues to how and when tuberculosis began to infect humans. With this knowledge in hand, we may be able to put an end to the deadliest infectious disease in human history.

This must be the oldest cold case ever. The remains of 83 people had lain for thousands of years under the earthen floor of a house in Dja’de el’Mughara, northern Syria. The mystery was not who had put them there. People who lived in that region during the Stone Age buried their dead under their house. But the cause of death came, at least to some researchers, completely unexpected. When archaeologists carefully examined the bones, they found that five people had suffered from tuberculosis (TB). They are among the oldest confirmed cases known.