For many years we were taught that back in the 19th century at the age of 30, a person was considered an old man, and life expectancy was almost two times less than today. Modern research has shown that this is a delusion and is caused by misinterpretation of statistics. We will tell you about how many people actually lived in ancient times and where the information about the short life of our ancestors came from.
When we hear about average life expectancy, we often misunderstand this term. In fact, we need to talk about the average life expectancy, which cannot correctly tell about how many people lived in past eras.
How many lived in the stone age
It's all about the high infant mortality rate, which claimed many lives in the first half of the 20th century. It was she who spoiled the overall average duration, making it frighteningly low. Scientists claim that during the Paleolithic era, the average life expectancy was 20 years. But did this mean that the Stone Age man at 20 was a decrepit old man standing on the edge of eternity?
Of course not, and the point here is again in infant mortality, which was especially high in the first years of life. Having lived up to 5 years, the ancient man could well count on another 30-35 years of life. Paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus examined the remains of people from the Paleolithic era and determined that most of them belong to men and women who lived from 20 to 40 years. At the same time, a quarter lived even more than 40 years. Interestingly, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons died at about the same age.
Scientists say that even 40 years is not the limit for people of the Middle Paleolithic era. Many ancient people could have lived much longer, but older people were ill-equipped for the constant pursuit of food. The remains of old people are often found at campsites, which suggests that they simply lagged behind their young fellow tribesmen and died of hunger or fell prey to predators.
Promotional video:
It may seem incredible, but modern representatives of the hunter-gatherer tribes living in remote corners of the world live no less than the average Russian or Ukrainian, despite the harsh life and lack of medicine. Anthropologists Michael Gurven and Hillard Kaplan spent a lot of time researching the Khivi (Venezuela and Colombia), Yanomamo (Brazil) and Hadza (Tanzania) peoples. All these people do not even have clothes and primitive tools, but they live long enough. The Pakistani Hunza tribe, living in very Spartan conditions, is known for its 120-year-old old-timers.
At birth, the life expectancy of representatives of these peoples does not exceed 35 years, and this is again a consequence of the enormous infant mortality rate. But having managed to live up to only 3 years old, representatives of modern primitive tribes get an excellent chance to meet old age and reach 70. In the countries of the former union, infant mortality is now no more than 1%, but not all of them live up to 70 either.
Ancient centenarians
For representatives of most ancient civilizations, the probable life expectancy at birth was also about 30 years. In ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt, at least 30% of children died in the first year of life. A resident of Rome, Athens or Corinth, having reached the age of 15, could well have lived for another 40, or even more. Yes, these are average indicators and there is every reason to believe that wealthy people of that time lived even longer.
Mummy of Ramses II.
The ancient Egyptians, who loved accounting and order in the records, left a lot of documentary evidence about the life expectancy of their pharaohs. From their sources, you can learn that Pepi II Neferkare of the 6th dynasty died at the age of 68, Thutmose III (18th dynasty) lived for 56 years, and Ramses II (19th dynasty) completely departed into another world in 90.
Of course, one would assume that the Egyptian scribes lied out of flattery, but this information is confirmed by modern researchers. Michael Zimmerman, a professor at the University of Manchester, performed an autopsy of more than 300 Egyptian mummies from different eras and, according to him, many of his "patients" passed away in 80-90 years. At the same time, they had a solid baggage of ailments such as diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis.
Military sources also confirm the high life expectancy in the ancient world. In the cities of Hellas, men between the ages of 18 and 60 were called to war, which means that in the seventh decade, the ancient Greeks were strong enough old people to hold a sword and shield in their hands, ride a horse, and also walk long distances on foot.
Socrates took poison at 70.
There were also long-livers among the famous personalities of Ancient Greece. Pythagoras died at 75, Hippocrates, Democritus and Sophocles at 90, and Xenophanes, in general, lived until 95. In Rome, things were no worse - the first emperor Octavian Augustus lived until 75, and his successor Tiberius - until 77. At the same time, Tacitus suspects, that the latter did not die entirely of his own free will, but was poisoned or strangled to give way to Caligula.
Long summers in the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages, relatively close to us in time, left a huge array of information about people's lives. Archaeologist Christine Cave at the Australian National University has been closely studying the length of the earth's journey and the causes of death of people who lived in the early Middle Ages.
In addition to the notes, Cave studied the remains from three English cemeteries from 475-625 years and, using a new method of determining the age by the degree of deterioration of the teeth, determined that there were many people who had crossed the 70-year mark in the graves. Ukrainian researchers, having studied the Kiev burials, found that in the Middle Ages a resident of the city, who celebrated 20 years, could well expect to live at least as long.
Among the medieval English nobility there were many long-livers. In the 13th century, an aristocrat who turned 21 could live on average another 43 years. But in the 14th century, this figure fell sharply to 24.5 years, thanks to the “black death” that came to Europe. In the 15th century, relatively prosperous in terms of epidemics, at the age of 15, a young man could count on another 48 years of life. It turns out that medieval aristocrats lived for about 70 years.
Commoners lived on average less than the nobility, but the difference was hardly very critical - at that time the main thing was to survive the first few years of life. As in the Ancient World, in Europe of the Middle Ages, up to 30% of babies died. In 13th century England, 650 out of 1000 children lived to 10 years, 550 to 30, and 300 to 50. At 75 and later, 70 out of 1000 died, which, you see, is very good.
It turns out that at all times in the world there have been enough long-livers, and not only from among the elite, but also from ordinary people. Having survived the childhood years - then the chance to live to old age is quite large.