First and foremost is that while Paleolithic-era humans may have been fit and trim, their average life expectancy was in the neighborhood of 35 years. The standard response to this is that average life expectancy fluctuated throughout history, and after the advent of farming was sometimes even lower than 35.
About half of all children died before adolescence. Those who survived to the age of 30 had a reasonable chance of reaching 50 or 60. The truly elderly, however, were rare. Because so many died in childhood, life expectancy at birth was probably between 20 and 30 years.
The era that most people think of when they talk about "cavemen" is the Paleolithic Era, sometimes referred to as the Stone Age (though actually the Paleolithic is but one part of the Stone Age). This era extends from more than 2 million years into the past until sometime between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The more than 80 skeletons found in the area show the approximate average lifespan of the people living there then was between 25 and 30 years.
Ancient Through Pre-Industrial Times
Unhygienic living conditions and little access to effective medical care meant life expectancy was likely limited to about 35 years of age. That's life expectancy at birth, a figure dramatically influenced by infant mortality—pegged at the time as high as 30%.
By 2050, we could all be living to 120, but how? As hard as it is to believe, just 150 years ago the average lifespan was 40 years. Yes, what we'd consider mid-life today was a full innings for our great-great-grandparents.
The current longevity record is held by Jeanne Calment, a French woman who passed away in 1997 at the age of 122 years and five months (see 'The rising age of the longest-living human').
The average lifespan at the time was around 35 years. Over the last 200 years, U.S. life expectancy has more than doubled to almost 80 years (78.8 in 2015), with vast improvements in health and quality of life.
From about 1.2 million years ago to less than 100,000 years ago, archaic humans, including archaic Homo sapiens, were dark-skinned.
The low life expectancies of the 19th century can be explained by the higher number of infant deaths. Survival past the first year of life was historically a predominant factor in life expectancies and once a child had reached five years of age, he or she was much more likely to reach a greater age.
They found that average time the members of each tribe spent asleep ranged from 5.7 to 7.1 hours per night, quite similar to the reported sleep duration in more modern societies.
The spread of modern humans across Europe is associated with the demise and ultimate extinction of Neanderthal populations 40,000 years ago, likely due to competition for resources.
Linguists have also “reconstructed” the mother language that all these languages come from. It is called Proto-Indo-European and was spoken nearly 5,000 years ago!
Apidima 2 was found to be around 170,000 years old, which is consistent with the age of other Neanderthal fossils in Europe. But Apidima 1 was dated to 210,000 years ago, making it by far the oldest Homo sapiens fossil found on the continent.
Life Expectancy before the Industrial Revolution
However, historians think it was about 35 years in the Middle Ages or the 16th Century. However, that does not mean that people died when they reached 35! The average life expectancy was around 35 but a great many of the people born died in childhood.
Longevity has increased steadily through history. Life expectancy at birth was a brief 25 years during the Roman Empire, it reached 33 years by the Middle Ages and raised up to 55 years in the early 1900s.
Basic math tells us that all humans share ancestors, but it's amazing how recently those shared ancestors lived. Thanks to genetic data in the 21st century, scientists are discovering that we really are all descended from one mother.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
As populations migrated away from the tropics into areas of low UV radiation, they developed light skin pigmentation as an evolutionary selection acting against vitamin D depletion.
The “Seven-Year Rule”
Georges Buffon, an 18th-century French naturalist, had more or less the same theory: Humans live to 90 or 100 years, and dogs to 10 or 12.
1400-1500 | Life expectancy: 48 years. 1500-1550 | Life expectancy: 50 years. 1550-1600 | Life expectancy: 47 years.
When child mortality is factored out (i.e., counting only those who survived to age 5, 55–65% of the population), life expectancy is around 40–45. The ~50% that reached age 10 could also expect to reach ~45-50.
According to one tradition, Epimenides of Crete (7th, 6th centuries BC) lived nearly 300 years.
While the population can expect to live longer lives on average, the human lifespan might have a cap. Scientists believe that the human lifespan could be anywhere from 120-150 years long, but not longer than that, due to accumulating hallmarks of aging and chronic disease.
Plus, there will be an increase in both the average height and longevity of most people in general. That means, in the year 3000 people will be about six feet tall and live to be 120 years old, on average. They will also tend to experience a slight reduction in the size of their mouths, as well.