The fact that Alit-Yam is one of the first Neolithic settlements evidenced to have domesticated cattle further goes to show that the bacteria infected humans first and then mutated into its bovine form. Several more skeletons found at the dig site exhibited traces of bacterial cell wall lipids, which have been directly linked to the presence of TB after DNA analysis.
Having discovered the first hosts of the TB bacteria, biologists now hope to be able to sequence the bacterial DNA, in the hope that they would find out exactly how it mutated over the thousands of years it lived in humans. Already, several strand portions have been identified in samples collected from the bones in Egypt, which are not present in today's TB strains. This could mean that changes in human physiology may also trigger alternate responses in bacterial morphology. Scientists continue their research, with the big prize being finding a way of ridding humanity of this terrible disease.