Life Expectancy in Prehistory
How long did our Prehistoric Ancestors live?
Oct 24, 2008 Ian Arthur Colquhoun
Living in the Past
We now take modern medicine and access to hospitals for granted. We have a whole plethora of medicines which make our daily life more comfortable. Imagine, however, that you were born in Britain at the time Stonehenge was in use. What was your life expectancy?
A number of archaeological excavations have produced human bones which have been studied and give us an idea of the diseases people suffered from. We can also estimate the age at death, which gives us an idea of how long people lived.
The Archaeological Evidence
A neolithic tomb at Isbister (The Tomb of the Eagles) on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, produced the remains of 342 people. The age profile of the bones showed a population where children outnumbered adults three to one. The most commom age of death was early adulthood, between 15 and 30. Only 1.5% of people were over 40, and very few lived to reach the age of 50. Old age, rather than life, began at 40.
Women died earlier than men, due to the rigours of childbirth, so there were more adult males tham females. Over half of the adults suffered from osteoarthritis. The children fared little better: one who died at the age of six had osteoarthritis of the neck, probably caused by carrying heavy loads. Children were an essential part of the community workforce.
Nobody at Isbister died a violent death. We do have bodies elsewhere who died through violence, such as the Ice Man found on the Austrian/ Italian border in 1991 who died from a flint arrowhead wound, or Iron Age Lindow Man, a bog body from England, who havd been executed. It is harder to determine the cause of death at Isbister.
There are good points though. People ate good, fresh food, and the lack of sugar in the diet meant no dental cavities. Stone ground flour, however, led to many people having ground down teeth. Herbal remedies would have been well understood, and used on a daily basis, to cope with those nagging everyday ailments.
Problems with the Evidence
There are problems however in our interpretation. Firstly, we don't know how representative our sample of the prehistoric population is. Those who were buried in tombs or cemeteries may not be representative of the population as a whole. This is especially true of infants. Many communities may have practised infanticide, leaving unwanted children to die in the open.
Secondly, a study of eighteenth century bones from the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields in London, have indicated that we may overestimate the age of 'young' bones and underestimate the age of 'old' bones. Researchers used information from plates on the coffins to show that there is more variability in human bone ageing than previously expected.
Sources
John Hedges A Guide to Isbister Chambered Tomb
Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice
Konrad Spindler The Man in the Ice
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