Adults weren't dropping dead at 30. To the contrary, adults died in young adulthood in early prehistory. That is, surviving infancy and childhood still led to

Adults weren't dropping dead at 30. To the contrary, adults died in young adulthood in early prehistory. That is, surviving infancy and childhood still led to a harsh life with high mortality, with most human beings dying before age fifty. The last time this came up in a Hacker News thread, I forgot to refer to the better source[1] I know about Pleistocene human mortality. Looking up just now, I see that there is an even more current and specific source[2] that reports "An assessment of younger (20–40 y) versus older (>40 y) adult mortality distributions for late archaic humans (principally Neandertals) and two samples of early modern humans (Middle Paleolithic and earlier Upper Paleolithic) provides little difference across the samples. All three Late Pleistocene samples have a dearth of older individuals compared with Holocene ethnographic/historical samples. They also lack older adults compared with Holocene paleodemographic profiles that have been critiqued for having too few older individuals for subsistence, social, and demographic viability. Although biased, probably through a combination of preservation, age assessment, and especially Pleistocene mobility requirements, these adult mortality distributions suggest low life expectancy and demographic instability across these Late Pleistocene human groups. They indicate only subtle and paleontologically invisible changes in human paleodemographics with the establishment of modern humans; they provide no support for a life history advantage among early modern humans." [1] The Nature of Paleolithic Art, by R. Dale Guthrie, a biologist who specializes in Pleistocene megafauna (including Homo sapiens), a fascinating book studded with references to the research literature. http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Paleolithic-Dale-Guthrie/dp/0226311260/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Paleolithic-Dale-Guthrie/dp... [2] Late Pleistocene adult mortality patterns and modern human establishment. (PMCID:PMC3029716) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3029716/reload=0;jsessionid=cKtfkE1l5N52Zyt675Gn.42 http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3029716/reload=0;jsessionid... I would be delighted to see any references you have to clarify our understanding of this subject.