average life expectancy is a trap -- the distribution is binomial. People tended to either die early, as infants, or live to an average 60.[0] Specifically, if

average life expectancy is a trap -- the distribution is binomial. People tended to either die early, as infants, or live to an average 60.[0] Specifically, if you were age 0, you have an expected lifespan of 40, but by age 10, you have an expected lifespan of 60. Today expected lifespan after reaching age 10 is better, but not as extreme as the average tells you: you'd expect to hit to live to 77. [1] So most people who were actually wandering out of their cribs would have found 60 to be a perfectly normal age; and 40 would still be middle aged -- the past wasn't that much different from the present :) you just wouldn't expect to see great-grandfathers as often (but at the same time, you don't see many today because the average first child-birth age has shifted upwards as well[2]) [0] https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011 https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expecta... [1] https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/life-expectancy-in-the-1800s-not-as-bad-as-reported/ https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/life-expectancy-in-... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Average-maternal-age-at-childbirth-1901-2014-and-at-first-childbirth-1960-2014-B_fig1_285584957 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Average-maternal-age-a...