Abstract:
The recent discovery that malignant neoplastic lesions date back nearly 2 million years
ago not only highlights the antiquity of cancer in the human lineage, but also provides
remarkable insight into ancestral hominin disease pathology. Using these Early
Pleistocene examples as a point of departure, we emphasize the prominent role of
viral and bacterial pathogens in oncogenesis and evaluate the impact of pathogens on
human evolutionary processes in Africa. In the Shakespearean vernacular “what’s past
is prologue,” we highlight the significance of novel information derived from ancient
pathogenic DNA. In particular, and given the temporal depth of human occupation in
sub-Saharan
Africa, it is emphasized that the region is ideally positioned to play a strategic
role in the discovery of ancient pathogenic drivers of not only human mortality,
but also human evolution. Ancient African pathogen genome data can provide novel
revelations concerning human-pathogen
coevolutionary processes, and such knowledge
is essential for forecasting the ways in which emerging zoonotic and increasingly
transmissible diseases might influence human demography and longevity in the
future.
