PHTHISIS. Consumption. King's Evil. White plague. Tuberculosis has had many names. Call it what you like, it was and still is a deadly disease, killing between 1 and 2 million people every year. But we think that humanity's relationship with this pathogen is far more complex than it first appears. In fact, it could have played a vital role in human evolution.
This counter-intuitive idea arose from a seemingly unrelated area of study: our ancient ancestors' meat-eating culture.
The story begins around a few million years ago, when our forest-dwelling, vegetarian ancestors transformed into meat-eating hunters. A meat-based diet probably started in a modest way with the hominin species Homo ergaster , who lived in Africa from 1.8 million years ago. Later, meat became seriously important in the diet of Homo heidelbergensis , who appeared around 500,000 years ago, then more so in their descendants: the Neanderthals and modern ...
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