Sapiens Had Good Resistance To Diseases, UK Prof Debunks Harari

British public health professor Jonathan Kennedy has debunked the claim of controversial Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari who theorized that Homo sapiens outlived Neanderthals because of their cognitive superiority and the use of language, Tzach Yoked reported for Haaretz.

Photo Insert: Homo erectus, who walked upright, and knew how to use fire, had greater immunity to diseases as their population expanded and got exposed to viruses and bacteria.

Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, had argued the cave-dwelling Neanderthals were dominated by Homo sapiens because they developed language skills quicker and communicated better than the Neanderthals or the Denisovans.

Homo erectus, who walked upright, and knew how to use fire, had greater immunity to diseases as their population expanded and got exposed to viruses and bacteria.

It wasn’t Homo sapiens' smarts that defeated the Neanderthals but their greater resistance to disease, Kennedy argued.

He views history as a continuum of viruses and bacteria. The mass plagues and infectious diseases that cost hundreds of millions of lives existed even before military coups and social revolutions, and they drove humanity forward, the public health sociologist says.

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