Life Expectancy Myths

The life expectancy myth, and why many ancient humans lived long healthy lives


It is not uncommon to hear talk about how lucky we are to live in this age of scientific and medical advancement where antibiotics and vaccinations keep us living longer, while our poor ancient ancestors were lucky to live past the age of 35. Well this is not quite true. At best, it oversimplifies a complex issue, and at worst it is a blatant misrepresentation of statistics. Did ancient humans really just drop dead as they were entering their prime, or did some live long enough to see a wrinkle on their face? 

According to historical mortality levels from the Encyclopaedia of Population (2003), average life expectancy for prehistoric humans was estimated at just 20 – 35 years; in Sweden in the 1750s it was 36 years; it hit 48 years by the 1900s in the USA; and in 2007 in Japan, average life expectancy was 83 years.  It would appear that as time went on, conditions improved and so did the length of people’s lives. But it is not so simple.

What is commonly known as ‘average life expectancy’ is technically ‘life expectancy at birth’.  In other words, it is the average number of years that a newborn baby can expect to live in a given society at a given time.  But life expectancy at birth is an unhelpful statistic if the goal is to compare the health and longevity of adults.  That is because a major determinant of life expectancy at birth is the child mortality rate which, in our ancient past, was extremely high, and this skews the life expectancy rate dramatically downward.

The early years from infancy through to about 15 was perilous, due to risks posed by disease, injuries, and accidents.  But those who survived this hazardous period of life could well make it into old age.

Drawing upon archaeological records, we can indeed see evidence of this. The "Old Man of La Chapelle", for example, is the name given to the remains of a Neanderthal who lived 56,000 years ago, found buried in the limestone bedrock of a small cave near La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in France in 1908.   Scientists estimate that he had reached old age by the time he died, as bone had re-grown along the gums where he had lost several teeth, perhaps decades before. He lacked so many teeth in fact that scientists suspect he needed his food ground down before he was able to eat it. The old man's skeleton indicates that he also suffered from a number of afflictions, including arthritis.

Old Man of La Chapelle’

Facial reconstruction from the skull of ‘The Old Man of La Chapelle’. Photo source .

If we look again at the estimated maximum life expectancy for prehistoric humans, which is 35 years, we can see that this does not mean that the average person living at this time died at the age of 35. Rather, it means that for every child that died in infancy, another person might have lived to be 70.  The life expectancy statistic is, therefore, a deeply flawed way to think about the quality of life of our ancient ancestors.

So is modern society more beneficial for health and longevity than, say, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle?  To help gain an answer to this question, scientists have compared the life span of adults in contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes (excluding the infant mortality rate).  It was found that once infant mortality rates were removed, life span was calculated to between 70 and 80 years, the same rate as that found in contemporary industrialised societies. The difference is that, in the latter, most individuals survive childhood (Kanazawa, 2008).

It is certainly true that improvements in food availability, hygiene, nursing care, medical treatments, and cultural innovations have resulted in far fewer deaths caused by external injuries, infections, and epidemics, but on the other hand, we face a global cancer crisis that our ancient ancestors never had to contend with on such a scale. Are we just replacing one form of death with another?

Major causes of death

A summary of major causes of death over time. S. Horiuchi, in United NaEons, Health and Mortality: Issues of Global Concern, 1999

Archaeologists and anthropologists face a real challenge in trying to unravel reliable information about the age structure of ancient populations, largely due to the lack of a sufficient number ancient samples, as well as the difficulties in determining exact age.  Nevertheless, we can safely say that our ancient ancestors were not dropping dead at 35, and some would have even been blessed with long and healthy lives. 

Featured image: Reconstruction of a Neanderthal in the Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann, Germany.

By April Holloway


The life expectancy myth – by Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.

Human lifespans have not been constant for the last 2000 years – by John Hawks

Life expectancy: Myth and reality – by Mark Gorman

Life expectancy for men and women 1850 to 2000 – Mapping History

Longevity Throughout History: How has human life expectancy changed over time? – by Sharon Basaraba

Common misconceptions about science II: Life expectancy – by Satoshi Kanazawa


This entire article and false statistics are being driven by the false religion of Naturalism (darwinism) which is full of nonsense and fictional concepts such as "cavemen", monkeys transforming into humans, millions of years and other lunacies. The fact that you talk about 50.000 years ago when nothing material even existed at that time shows how much influence your false religion has on this nonsense.

The ancient people lived a lot longer than what we can live and this is recorded in the history of all civilizations which are a lot more trustworthy than "modern" atheist darwinists that call themselves "scientists". Medicine has never, ever being able to increase the average lifespan from the downside that it has been heading since the first human couple. There is always loss of information in the genes and combination of previous information, but not even once has there ever been new information made, because it is impossible and the genes are degrading.

The first generations of humans lived hundreds of years, and their genes were far more superior than ours. Their buildings were marvelous and noone today can build something like anymore. The average life expectancy from 2000 BC and after has always been 120 years old and then it degraded to 70 in the last centuries since our genes are degenerating.

I am interested in prehistoric humans and their lif e span
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I agree that we underestimate the ancient people. Even today there aren't a lot technology actually has done in adding to our life span. The important factors remain the same: sleep quality, nutrients, stress level. For example, GMO is utilized to produce massive amount of crops but these crops are gluten-laced and deprived of the goody of traditional crops. This is why we have been consuming so much more sugar than people from before and obesity has become a problem more and more. There are no pharmesutical drugs or nano robots capable to best nutritional science so far. I wish that day will come where technology finally is able to take a crucial rule though.

I've often thought that ancient people must've lived longer than we've always been told, considering their advanced astrological knowledge. If most everyone was dying at the ripe old age of 28 or so, with children to care for and feed, who would've had time or even sufficient interest to track the movement of celestial bodies, etc., not to mention the great neolithic structure building that was going on all over the world.

What you write is not a revelation. It's has always been communicated in the literature since at least when I studied this 40 years ago that the average life expectancy did not mean maximum possible age. It's only through the non scientific, popular, badly researched press that such misunderstanding is perpetuated.


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