Present as an inverse of the past

Longevity & health in ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic peoples by Ward Nicholson.

Quite fascinating. We get used to the world as we know it today and even though we know that olden times were different, it is easy to lose track of how different and in what ways. So we generally know that we live much longer than people used to but we can overlook just how recently was this life extension.

Between 30,000 years ago up till the 1920s, life expectancy bounced around between 30 and 40 years.

It was only post-1920s that life-spans doubled in the developed world.

The other fact that caught my eye was the turning on its head of a modern condition which we take for granted: that women live about 10% longer than men. Before 1920, women, on average had a life span approximately 15-30% shorter than men. So many discussions today seem predicated on the assumption that women live longer than men but that is true only for the past 90 years out of modern man's existence of 50,000 years.

Many more interesting titbits in the report.