Ancient Ailment? Early human may have carried tuberculosis
By Brian Vastag
Check your tile countertop for fossils. A consumptive Homo erectus—or at least a piece of him—might be trapped there.
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While cutting coveted travertine into tiles, a saw operator in Turkey sliced through a fossilized skull and gave the pieces to his supervisor. The fragments from the 500,000-year-old rock sat on a shelf behind the supervisor’s desk until a local geologist visiting the fossil-rich site claimed them.