Whilst that is true, mortality rates are averages not norms. For example, the Max Plank Institute did a study which found

Scholars in the Holy Roman Empire could expect to live for about 60 years as early as at the close of the Middle Ages. But their life expectancy did not climb any further right into the 18th century. Just the contrary, the Thirty Years' War brought a severe mortality crisis.

In the early 7th Century BC, the Greek poet Hesiod wrote that a man should marry “when you are not much less than 30, and not much more”. Meanwhile, ancient Rome’s ‘cursus honorum’ – the sequence of political offices that an ambitious young man would undertake – didn’t even allow a young man to stand for his first office, that of quaestor, until the age of 30 (under Emperor Augustus, this was later lowered to 25; Augustus himself died at 75). To be consul, you had to be 43 – eight years older than the US’s minimum age limit of 35 to hold a presidency.

Taken altogether, life span in ancient Rome probably wasn’t much different from today.

Archaeologists Christine Cave and Marc Oxenham of Australian National University have recently found the same. Looking at dental wear on the skeletons of Anglo-Saxons buried about 1,500 years ago, they found that of 174 skeletons, the majority belonged to people who were under 65 – but there also were 16 people who died between 65 and 74 years old and nine who reached at least 75 years of age.

Edited by Mapletree (06 Jun 2023 8.22am)

The Premier League.

20 managers.

All male.....forever.

a scandalous symptom of the Patriarchy. A sexist and brutal indictment of the World we live in. Trying to tell us that girls are not good enough for football ? Boardrooms, yes. Parliaments, yes. Harley Street, yes. Why not football ?

When will Gary Linekar start to bang the drum ?

Girls Lives matter.