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Comment by grog454 | Hacker News Reader

I had the same thought. 60-80 years is probably longer than the average lifespan 5,000 years ago, so a surprising period for a "tradition".

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Average lifespans were pulled sharply downward by early deaths. The elders in any given community would have gotten almost as old as now, there’s just weren’t nearly as many of them.

> there’s just weren’t nearly as many of them.

Unless the birthrates were higher. If people gave birth to litters of fifty of which all but a few were expected to die, the average lifespan would be in the single digits.

Women often died during childbirth. In medieval times some estimates put it at 30% of women died during one of their childbirths (but I can’t find rates on a per pregnancy basis and don’t know how many children they were having in average). Estimates are that up to 1-in-50 pregnancies killed the mother in antiquity.

I suspect it was exceptional if a woman bore more than 6 children, although obviously some women would have more than ten. I believe the baby boomer generation had large families due to excellent modern medical care post WW2.

I definitely wasn't thinking about that, good point. Fewer old women.

Not sure exactly what you mean but you can have lower average life expectancy and still see lots of people reaching old age (60-80).

Longer average contemporary lifespan in the west has a lot to do with infant/child mortality.

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