New Research Dispels the Myth That Ancient Cultures Had Universally Short Lifespans

[Judi Lynn]

Teeth are key to identifying elderly remains

By Mika McKinnon
smithsonian.com
January 10, 2018

After examining the graves of over 300 people buried in Anglo Saxon English cemeteries between 475 and 625 AD, archaeologist Christine Cave of the Australian National University made a discovery that might surprise you. She found that several of the bodies in the burial grounds were over 75 years old when they died.

Cave has developed a new technique for estimating the age that people died based on how worn their teeth are​. The work is dispelling myths that ancient cultures had universally short lifespans, Stephanie Dalzell reports for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Teeth are wonderful things. They can tell us so much about a person, they are simply marvelous,” Cave tells Dalzell.

While archeologists have long been able to estimate the age at time of death for younger people based on their skeletal development, techniques for dating older people have been inconsistent. “When you are determining the age of children you use developmental points like tooth eruption or the fusion of bones that all happen at a certain age,” Cave explains in a statement released by the university. But because the degradation from aging impacts skeletons in such a diverse range of ways, it’s harder to come up with a single universal comparison point.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews-history-archaeology/identifying-elderly-remains-just-got-easier-180967789/#GVVC2VQzDIjlM7Fk.99

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. This has actually been known for a long time.

Based on birth death records that have been kept in various cultures.

A lot of people seriously misunderstand what is meant when it's said: "These people had an average life expectancy of 30 years." Too many think that means that the folks in question grew old and died by age thirty. Nope. That average age was heavily influenced by infant mortality. The lower the average life expectancy, the higher infant and childhood mortality was. Once someone got past the age of ten they were likely to live to be at least thirty or forty, and once they made it to forty, they had a good chance of living to sixty, and so on.

Even today, here on DU people cite life expectancy numbers as if they apply to them now, when they are already 50, 60, or 70. Yeah, if you have some life-limiting disease you'll die sooner, and if your family members tend to die young, your chances of a long life might be reduced, but overall, someone who today is sixty-five is likely to last into his or her eighties.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. An ancester of mine in the 1800s had two sons.

One died in infancy, the other lived to be 91. So the average lifespan of the two was just over 45 years.

That does not mean people routinely dropped dead at age 45.

Why don't people understand that? Infant mortality, the Civil War, WWI, all skewed the "average lifespan" to the young end of the spectrum. But surviving into adulthood often meant living to a ripe old age.

Even in ancient Rome men who survived childhood and military service lived into their 80s and 90s.