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Think Everyone Died Young in Ancient Societies? Think Again

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 17 2018, @11:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-not-logan's-run dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

People in the past were not all dead by 30. Ancient documents confirm this. In the 24th century BCE, the Egyptian Vizier Ptahhotep wrote verses about the disintegrations of old age. The ancient Greeks classed old age among the divine curses, and their tombstones attest to survival well past 80 years. Ancient artworks and figurines also depict elderly people: stooped, flabby, wrinkled.

This is not the only type of evidence, however. Studies on extant traditional people who live far away from modern medicines and markets, such as Tanzania's Hadza or Brazil's Xilixana Yanomami, have demonstrated that the most likely age at death is far higher than most people assume: it's about 70 years old. One study found that although there are differences in rates of death in various populations and periods, especially with regards to violence, there is a remarkable similarity between the mortality profiles of various traditional peoples.

High infant mortality and inaccuracy at the other end of the age range skew the numbers.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:33AM (4 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:33AM (#709249) Homepage
    "semicolons in the version part of the link were breaking something"

    If this looks like it might be a soylent bug, please tell us more. Just recently, I've looked at the automatic linkifying code, in particular with respect to how it treats punctuation, maybe I have broken something. Either reply here, or hop onto #dev on the IRC server, and you can tell us how to reproduce the issue.
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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:24PM

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:24PM (#709578) Journal

    I posted an example of the problem in the dev channel. Not sure anyone was there.

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    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:28PM (2 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:28PM (#709584) Journal

    https://logs.sylnt.us/#dev/2018-07-19.html [sylnt.us] Has the link example that showed up broken when I chose preview, before I submitted my comment.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:10PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:10PM (#709628) Homepage
      Thanks! We idle there, and are dotted around the different time zones, so whilst there's a good chance someone will be alive and kicking, there's a good chance many won't be. Which posting mode do you use - Plain Old Text, HTML, Extrans, or Code?
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:30PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:30PM (#709636) Homepage
      Whilst some slight improvement in problem detection might be possible, i think your particular case is unfixable:
      Explanation at https://dev.soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/01/117209&page=1&noupdate=1#comment_31539
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves