Longevity among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination
Michael Gurven and Hillard Kaplan
Population and Development Review, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Jun., 2007), pp. 321-365
That data must be flawed. Only by 1980 did life expectancy pass 52 years at at the age of 20.
That paper suggests that hunter-gatherers were healthier than people in 1980′s which cannot be true. (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html)
They are not saying that hunter gatherers reached this age on average; they are saying that in a “state of nature”, as judged by looking at hunter gatherer societies, it is reasonable to assume, based on their evidence, that the human body and mind was adapted to work until 68-78 years of age. When they use the term ‘modal age’ (as they do in their conclusion, and their introduction), they mean ‘modal’ in the sense of modal possibility—‘could be’ or ‘would be’.
Edit: Sorry, that was unclear. To quote from the article, “the modal age at death may be the age at which most people experience sufficient physical decline such that if they do not die from one cause, they soon die from another.” That is, it is the age that the body starts to wear out, and one might be considered enfeebled.
I don’t think we have any good data on life expectancy among hunter-gatherers. Many people argue that life expectancy went down significantly with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies. That may or may not be true but the statistics you link are not relevant to the claim. Just because life expectancy has been going up for the last few hundred years does not prove that it was even lower some thousands of years ago.
Here’re some numbers! According to this paper](http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434609 (conclusions on page 349), once hunter-gatherers passed the age of 15, the average age age of death was 72 years. (!) Compare with the 2013 US average life expectancy of 78.8 years.
That data must be flawed. Only by 1980 did life expectancy pass 52 years at at the age of 20. That paper suggests that hunter-gatherers were healthier than people in 1980′s which cannot be true. (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html)
They are not saying that hunter gatherers reached this age on average; they are saying that in a “state of nature”, as judged by looking at hunter gatherer societies, it is reasonable to assume, based on their evidence, that the human body and mind was adapted to work until 68-78 years of age. When they use the term ‘modal age’ (as they do in their conclusion, and their introduction), they mean ‘modal’ in the sense of modal possibility—‘could be’ or ‘would be’.
Edit: Sorry, that was unclear. To quote from the article, “the modal age at death may be the age at which most people experience sufficient physical decline such that if they do not die from one cause, they soon die from another.” That is, it is the age that the body starts to wear out, and one might be considered enfeebled.
That seems to indicate that summarizing what they’ve said as the average age of death being 72 years is not accurate.
Yes. That summary is totally inaccurate.
I don’t think we have any good data on life expectancy among hunter-gatherers. Many people argue that life expectancy went down significantly with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies. That may or may not be true but the statistics you link are not relevant to the claim. Just because life expectancy has been going up for the last few hundred years does not prove that it was even lower some thousands of years ago.