Wolfman wrote on 09/01/11 at 13:10:35:Actualy stoneage man didnt live to a ripe old age.
Neanderthal man lived to a ripe old age of 30. Very few lived longer.
Fact is it was'nt until the late 1800's and early 1900's that the average age began t go higher then 50 or so.
In the 1700's 40-50 was considered extreme old age.
The average for the male of the species stands at 76 right now with the female being an average of 83.
Better foods, eatting habits, medical and dental care are what has extended the average life span to what it is.
Margerine is only a couple of molicules different from basic plastic.
Bugs wont even eat it. Put a Big pat of it out and see how long it takes to disappear.
The nice thing about this Forum is one can disagree without being shot at.
Wolfman, you confuse a statistic with a social condition.
The statistic is "in the days of the Stone Age, a man's average age was 30".
Read that again, it says "average age", meaning, for every baby who died during childbirth, or during his first year... for every child who died of a fever before reaching 10... for every inexperienced young hunter who got mauled by a beast, or inexperienced young warrior who got killed on his first expedition... someone would live to see 70 or more.
Not to mention teenage brides who died during their very first childbirth (which is always the most troublesome).
Now, we can either claim historical recodrs are a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, and Kings and Pharaohs never really lived to be 90+, we can claim the old Medicine men and Shamans (and Priests in the Temples) actually never lived to be of a highly respectable age...
...or we can admit that Mr. and Mrs. Main Street have been brainwashed into believing a statistic was actually a threshold.
If I have two chickens and you go hungry, we got a chicken each, right?
Just go and read Mark Twain, or R.L.Stevenson, or Homer, if you care, and you'll see antiquity was rife with people well beyond 60 or 70.
It's just that so many died in childhood or by their 40s, either from illness or childbirth (any lady rider can tell us what 12+hours labor are like !) that the avergage age was brought down.
Incidentally, it was brought down by statisticians and would be historians whom were proven wrong by later archaeological dscoveries.
As for myself, of my 8 great-grandparents...
- the four who lived farmers' or fishermen's lives, all lived beyond 95 (in the 19th century)
- the four who lived in the city, and were "well off" and had heating, running water and ate meat many times/week... one GGF died of a heart attack at 40; the other lived to a mere 60; the two great-grandnothers lived through two world wars, and died into their nineties.
So, looking at family who were all born around 1850/1860, 6 lived to 90, 1 lived to 60, one died at 40.
That's pretty significant to me.
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