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> Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom Interesting take. Do you reckon this happened for long eno
by beAbU 1y ago
> Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom
Interesting take. Do you reckon this happened for long enough in human history that it's had an impact on the evolution on the male psyche?
I'm under the impression that it's only in the last 1000 years or so where life beyond 30-40 years started to become the norm.
- jappgar 1y agoHN is not a good place to ask questions on Anthropology, so I'd encourage you to read primary source materials. You have a common misconception about human longevity. The "average" lifespan of humans was only 30 -40 years because very young humans would frequently die from disease or accidents. Humans have been capable of living to 70+ years for many millenia, it was just rare. 50 yearold humans were not rare though. The average is low because of infant and childhood mortality.
- beAbU 1y agoThanks, I failed to realise that I'm looking at average age, not upper limit. Things like infant mortality drove that number right down.
- pmontra 1y agoCounter example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire What's important is the life expectancy at a given age. There used to be a huge infant mortality but the half of newborn that made it to 10 would live on average 50 years. That means that some of them would live 70 or more. There is a table with life expectancy given the age. At 70 was 6.5 more years. That is from a mix of the sparse available data and models.