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Why Past Life Expectancy Numbers Are Misleading
The risks were not uniform
The Roman Empire was the pinnacle of human civilization in the ancient world. They built roads across Europe, developed large and fast-flowing aqueducts, and planted their standard from Spain to Persia. People still travel by the millions to look upon their architecture with their own eyes and marvel at the things that human hands built millennia ago.
But the life expectancy in ancient Rome was a paltry 25 years old. That doesn’t sound grand at all.
Life expectancy during the Medieval Period hovered around 35 years of age. Even at the start of the 20th century, life expectancy was just 50 years old in many so-called developed nations.
Numbers like this evoke images of desolate wastelands where there are no elderly people. Where a village would have one fortunate soul that managed to live into their 50s. That is not the case at all.
In fact, a good number of people lived well into their 60s and 70s in the ancient world and the Medieval world.
The low life expectancy numbers are due to a quirk of statistics that do not paint a full picture.
