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I've heard this argument a million times, but I am very skeptical: where would the reliable data on infant mortality in ancient times come from? (so that it wou

I've heard this argument a million times, but I am very skeptical: where would the reliable data on infant mortality in ancient times come from? (so that it would allow us to compute precise values of average lifespan). All we have from those times are a few bone samples and a few anecdotes preserved in fragments. I'm not saying anything for or against the ~33 years claim, just that I doubt that it comes from a precise estimate of expected lifespan at birth.

achierius 2y ago
> All we have from those times are a few bone samples and a few anecdotes preserved in fragments. This is the bit that you're missing: antiquity is generally considered to extend all the way into the 500-600s AD, with the Roman empire dominating its center and 'late antiquity' covering the whole early period of the Byzantine empire. This means that even just in Europe we have extensive documents (e.g. in the Christian era, baptism and burial records), as well as a wealth of burial evidence from which to extrapolate lifespans. If you look into the sources for Rome you'll find Egypt in particular come up a lot, which isn't an accident: the dry climate and extensive use of papyrus means that the region preserved far more records (and bodies) than any other part of the empire.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
nosianu 2y ago
In a Gresham College video lecture about microbial disease (if only I remembered the title...) the lecturing professor briefly mentions that in Victorian Britain life expectancy was actually "higher than today" when you exclude children and women (who had a great risk of death during pregnancy and birth). https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/return-microbes-how-infections-are-once-more-taking-over https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/return-microbes-how-infe... The video has a text with the words. Look for > So, your life expectancy at five, in England, as a male, in 1870 was slightly longer than it is now, which is an extraordinary statistic, slightly shorter then if you were a female. 1870s Britain is not "ancient", but as far as medicine is concerned much closer to that than to modern times. What medicine there was wasn't even available to most people. They were pretty good with "physical" things like broken bones by then, but anything concerning microbes probably wasn't much better than what was done a thousand years earlier. Obviously, as you point out, we don't have statistics from ancient times, only some hints, but that is the same for people making the claim about the short average life spans (without the little detail about infant and women mortality). There also is the question of how meaningful it is to average over vastly different sections of the population (what you did and how you lived and what you ate, access to good water, hygiene), or times of famine or war. Some related discussion, reddit, but the heavily moderated AskHistorians subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_was_the_average_life_expectancy_of_a_native/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_... There we see the lower life expectancy of early agricultural societies vs. hunter-gatherers (ignoring their high number of deaths due to violence). I think all of this also serves to illustrate OPs point about the problem of averages :-) There's just too much important information that is lost.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  If we kill everyone with chronic diseases the result is that the people left will live longer. Congratulations, you just rediscovered the health policy of the Third Reich.
  - nosianu 2y ago
    Your comment makes no sense as response to what I wrote. People who die already do show up in those numbers. You should also consider that those are not my words, you are arguing against that professor.

achierius 2y ago

> All we have from those times are a few bone samples and a few anecdotes preserved in fragments. This is the bit that you're missing: antiquity is generally considered to extend all the way into the 500-600s AD, with the Roman empire dominating its center and 'late antiquity' covering the whole early period of the Byzantine empire. This means that even just in Europe we have extensive documents (e.g. in the Christian era, baptism and burial records), as well as a wealth of burial evidence from which to extrapolate lifespans. If you look into the sources for Rome you'll find Egypt in particular come up a lot, which isn't an accident: the dry climate and extensive use of papyrus means that the region preserved far more records (and bodies) than any other part of the empire.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

nosianu 2y ago

In a Gresham College video lecture about microbial disease (if only I remembered the title...) the lecturing professor briefly mentions that in Victorian Britain life expectancy was actually "higher than today" when you exclude children and women (who had a great risk of death during pregnancy and birth). https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/return-microbes-how-infections-are-once-more-taking-over https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/return-microbes-how-infe... The video has a text with the words. Look for > So, your life expectancy at five, in England, as a male, in 1870 was slightly longer than it is now, which is an extraordinary statistic, slightly shorter then if you were a female. 1870s Britain is not "ancient", but as far as medicine is concerned much closer to that than to modern times. What medicine there was wasn't even available to most people. They were pretty good with "physical" things like broken bones by then, but anything concerning microbes probably wasn't much better than what was done a thousand years earlier. Obviously, as you point out, we don't have statistics from ancient times, only some hints, but that is the same for people making the claim about the short average life spans (without the little detail about infant and women mortality). There also is the question of how meaningful it is to average over vastly different sections of the population (what you did and how you lived and what you ate, access to good water, hygiene), or times of famine or war. Some related discussion, reddit, but the heavily moderated AskHistorians subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_was_the_average_life_expectancy_of_a_native/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_... There we see the lower life expectancy of early agricultural societies vs. hunter-gatherers (ignoring their high number of deaths due to violence). I think all of this also serves to illustrate OPs point about the problem of averages :-) There's just too much important information that is lost.

llm_trw 2y ago
If we kill everyone with chronic diseases the result is that the people left will live longer. Congratulations, you just rediscovered the health policy of the Third Reich.
- nosianu 2y ago
  Your comment makes no sense as response to what I wrote. People who die already do show up in those numbers. You should also consider that those are not my words, you are arguing against that professor.