3 Matching Annotations
- Aug 2023
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www.ancient-origins.net www.ancient-origins.net
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- for: human life expectancy, life expectancy, life expectancy myth, life expectancy at birth, life expectancy - ancestors
- title: The life expectancy myth, and why many ancient humans lived long healthy lives
- comment
- new insight
- life expectancy at birth skews our understanding of how the health and longevity of adults. -There is a false claim and belief that due to modern technologies, modern humans have lived far longer than our ancestors in the distant past.
- In fact, child mortality rates play a major role in calculating life expectancy and this is what differs modernity from our ancestors.
- Our distant ancestors did live to their 70s and 80s
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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?
- for: life expectancy, human life expectancy, life expectancy - myth, life expectancy - ancestors
- paraphrase
- 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.
- This is not quite true:
- at best, it oversimplifies a complex issue, and
- at worst it is a blatant misrepresentation of statistics.
- It is not uncommon to hear talk about how lucky we are to live in this age of scientific and medical advancement
- key question
- What happened?
- 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?
- What happened?
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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.
- for: life expectancy, human life expectancy, life expectancy - myth, life expectancy at birth, life expectancy - ancestors
- paraphrase
- definition
- 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.
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