Caveman life expectancy

The Earl Of Sammich

What's the best estimate of the lifespan of people in palaeolithic times?

Closer to 30 or 70?

Adam Khor

The Earl Of Sammich wrote: »

What's the best estimate of the lifespan of people in palaeolithic times?

Closer to 30 or 70?

This is really a question for our ancient hominin expert Wibbs But to the best of my knowledge, during the Paleolithic people would very rarely live beyond 40 years old. Wikipedia says the life expectancy at birth was about 33 years, and that if you made it to age 15 you had good chances of living more than that, but probably nowhere near close to 70.

I know from reading ancient Egypt books that the life expectancy for commoners 4000 to 3000 years ago was really not that different from that of Paleolithic peoples- with the average being about 30-35 (rich people, including pharaohs, lived longer, but then they were better fed and had their own doctors...)

Galwayguy35

Adam Khor wrote: »

This is really a question for our ancient hominin expert Wibbs But to the best of my knowledge, during the Paleolithic people would very rarely live beyond 40 years old. Wikipedia says the life expectancy at birth was about 33 years, and that if you made it to age 15 you had good chances of living more than that, but probably nowhere near close to 70.

I know from reading ancient Egypt books that the life expectancy for commoners 4000 to 3000 years ago was really not that different from that of Paleolithic peoples- with the average being about 30-35 (rich people, including pharaohs, lived longer, but then they were better fed and had their own doctors...)

I read somewhere that hunter gatherers lived into their 60s in many cases and that the men were all around 6ft in height but when people started to begin living in settlements and working the land disease increased and as they started to eat less meat the height of the men decreased as well.

This is just something I read on Wiki so Im not sure how factual it is

belcampprisoner

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/why-cavemen-didnt-die-young/

Adam Khor

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I read somewhere that hunter gatherers lived into their 60s in many cases and that the men were all around 6ft in height but when people started to begin living in settlements and working the land disease increased and as they started to eat less meat the height of the men decreased as well.

This is just something I read on Wiki so Im not sure how factual it is

I guess at least the disease part makes sense....

Wibbs

Well if you take out the scarily high childhood mortality rate among them, modern hunter gatherers living similar lifestyles to paleolithic people, getting to 60-70 isn't that unexpected.

That said there are gonna be lots of factors. 1) which paleolithic environment are we talking about? They varied a lot, from periods of warmth and high biodiversity and therefore food availability* to periods of bone aching cold. Folks living in the latter are going to be under much more environmental stress. 2) Which paleolithic people are we talking about? Neandertals, Denisovans, early us, or later us Sapiens? Just looking at us moderns, it seems something happened around 40,000 years ago when we started to live longer, more of us lived beyond early middle age. Environmental, cultural, genetic change?

Personally speaking? IMvHO some attributed ages may be off. Take Neandertals, in particular the Old man of La Chapelle aux Saints. He's given an age of around 40 when he died. OK, but a couple of things stand out. 1) he was riddled with arthritis. Many Neandertals show evidence of this because of their harsh physical lifestyles, but he stands out(his hunched appearance in life is what gave us the old idea that "cavemen" were stooped over and apelike). Other Neandertals that they reckon are late 30's/early 40's don't show nearly this level of disease. 2) he has barely a tooth in his head, all his molars are gone and the jawbone has healed over and receded, so he was toothless for quite a while. We're talking many years. Again he stands out in this as most Neandertals have great sets of choppers, again including ones that are reckoned to be late 30's early 40's. Now he could just have been an unlucky bugger with weak teeth and joints, but again IMHO his original given name of the "Old man" is more accurate and he's much closer to 60 than 40. Hell his skull even to a passerby looks like an oulfellas.

Maybe he was a very rare individual though. This might explain a couple of things. His lack of teeth meant others would have had to pre process his food for him and people ate harder foods back then(hence their generally great teeth and jaw development). His arthritis would have made him more of a liability in foraging and hunting, yet they kept him around. If and it's still a big if he was deliberately buried when he died, this would also plug into the "special status" of him. All maybe because he was so unusually old and possibly wise and still useful to his family and friends.

The biggest problem with trying to figure stuff like this out is the lack of fossils representing whole groups. We've more Neandertals and their ilk than any other ancient folks, yet it's still a tiny number. Those that are preserved may be representative of their type, or they might be outliers, it's hard to tell. IE if archaeologists judged ancient peoples and cultures by royal burials alone we'd make up a very different picture of the past.




*that's a sticking point for me regarding the paleo diets that are fash at the mo, which one? The diet of folks living beside the sea, the diet of those living deep inland in cold climates, a diet that looks more like wolves, the diet of those living inland in times of plenty? Take Neandertals. Oh defo major meat eaters surely, yet the lads and lasses in Iran were as far as we know the first humans to collect and crush wild grains to make biscuits(or a broth) waaaaay before we started farming. About the only things you can say about the real paleo diets was it was very low in sugar and highly varied.

Galwayguy35

Adam Khor wrote: »

I guess at least the disease part makes sense....

You dont agree that some of them could have lived into their 60s then?

Adam Khor

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

You dont agree that some of them could have lived into their 60s then?

No, I didn´t say that... I just say that it makes sense that diseases, especially contagious ones became a more common thing once people started living in "colonies", same as animals that live in colonies like prairie dogs or bats are more prone to be victims of epidemics than animals that are solitary or live in smaller numbers. Just a thought...

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

if archaeologists judged ancient peoples and cultures by royal burials alone we'd make up a very different picture of the past.

Exactly, that was my point when I mentioned pharaohs before :>

Capt'n Midnight

Ebaillargeon82

The Earl Of Sammich wrote: »

What's the best estimate of the lifespan of people in palaeolithic times?

Closer to 30 or 70?

It's in fact closer to 30.