One billion A.D. A question for evolution fans.

[leo-rcc]

Actually, in Europe right after the rise of the Holy Roman empire, hygiene was quite good in the towns and the countryside. Life expectancy was reasonably high.

The average life span in the Middle Ages was indeed shorter than today but how much smaller is often exaggerated. Average life expectancy at birth was only 35. Many of the people born died while they were still children. Out of all people born between one third and one half died before the age of about 16. However if you could survive to your mid-teens you would probably live to your 50s or early 60s. Even in the Middle Ages some people did live to their 70s or 80s.

After the early middle ages where more and more people were drawn to the cities is where the misery started. Hygiene was a major problem with lack of fresh water and decent sewage. This was the breeding ground of course for epidemics like the plague. Those diseases were transported into the countryside and smaller towns by people trading in the cities.

Thats really interesting Leo. Where did you get that info? I think I heard hitchens and/or harris or someone else mention the 25 year old average life expectancy before medicine. I also either heard it on the 'Atheist' youtube video that won awards. Or a similar one I get mixed up with sometimes that I forget the name of and can't find now,
So that interests me. I wonder where the 25 year claim comes from originally at least? And I'm interesting to where you heard otherwise.

Well most of my info is what I've gathered from my time at re-enactment and Archeological parks in Europe such as Archeon in the Netherlands. I've also read up a lot on middle ages, and their warfare for instance.

The main reason the life expectancy figure is so much lower in total is more to due with the fact that the plague accounted for over 10% of the worlds population to die at the time. Plus many deaths at young age also pulls the figures down. The book "Expectations of Life by H.O. Lancaster (1990)" gives some better insight.

He compiled a table from where human remains were found, dated them, and by the bone structure assesed an age. He collected as many samples as he could find.

What you see there is that there is a sudden drop between 1300 and 1400 AD because of the black death at 24.5 . Before and after that century the average age was 40 to 48 years.

I don't have that book in digital form so I cant show it, but you can probably find it online somewhere.

Of course the time before the middle ages gets more difficult because you find less and less remains to establish accuracy.