Did our ancestors really live for hundreds of years? (page 2)

doogie

this seems to be a pretty comprehensive study:

Ageing Through The Ages

http://mac-huwis.lboro.ac.uk/ASL/Publications/PDFs/Ageing%20through%20the%20Ages.pdf

Leolaia

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040706082820.htm

This article claims that human longevity increased to about 30+ years of age about 32,000 y.a., as indicated by the presence of two adult (defined as "child bearing") generations in communities.

pennycandy

According to Doogie's study, as far back as 200,000 BC, no human remains have been discovered that had lived more than 40 years.

I don't know why I've never thought of this before. Reconciling Biblical history to science has always involved issues like the Flood, miracles, chronology, geography. Now that I think of it, ancient agespan should be an important point in any discussion of whether the Bible is literally historical or not.

doogie

i tried to cut and paste from the last article (it's not letting me and i'm easily frustrated), but i think it does a good job of acknowledging difficulties in determining age of bones (edited to add: of course, not to be confused with 'date of bones'). even though it states that some scientists feel that the avg. ages are underestimated, 20-30 years is a far cry from 700-900 years.

JH

I don't know my bible that well, but if a person could have lived 900 years, wouldn't it be written somewhere in the bible that a person could be talking to his great great great great great grandfather or something like that. That would prove that there were many generations alive living together, thus people living very very long....

Just a thought.

doogie

I don't know my bible that well, but if a person could have lived 900 years, wouldn't it be written somewhere in the bible that a person could be talking to his great great great great great grandfather or something like that.

at least one of the unbelievably long life spans listed in the bible is self contradictory. (to reach his age, methusaleh would have had to live through the flood although he was not on the ark)

Liberty

Hi Pennycandy,

Like most of the Bible it's accounts of people living to almost 1000 years old is pure fantasy from all the available evidence I've seen. These stories are contemporary with other known cultures who left us written records from these times and none of them report humans living to such extreme ages. Even if other cultures did claim that people lived this long it would not be provable either but it is interesting that since no such claims are made it is very unlikely that people were even living to be 200 years old or someone would have noted it somewhere even as a folk tale or exaggeration. Most of the Archeological evidence leads us to believe people in these times lived about as long as we do today if they were lucky, healthy, and had enough food. If the Watch Tower's theory about people in ancient times being closer to perfection and hence having longer life spans was true then there should have been a lot of evidence of many people gradually dying at a younger and younger ages counting down from the upper 100's regardless of their cultures. The recorded reigns of Egyptian Kings for instance all show lifespans exactly in line with what one would expect from normal modern humans living under the conditions prevailent then in ancient Egypt.

Think of the unique familial relationships which would have been noted by someone in talking about living alongside their own GreatGreatGreatGreat Grandparents/Grandchildren yet there is no mention of such. Why would Noah have only taken his children and their wifes on the Ark when clearly there should have been his Parents, Grandparents, Great Grandparents, etc. to include, not to mention his numerous generations of Grandchildren, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins etc. Surely they were not all evil since Noah got his righteousness from somewhere? Noah does not even mourn the loss of all these close relatives who would surely have been alive if everybody was living past 500 years or more. The Bible is illogical even within it's own context in this regard. People living to nearly 1000 years old is clearly sheer nonsense.

AlanF

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that humans have ever normally lived beyond what they do today.

Some comments about lifespans:

We need to carefully distinguish between average lifespan (defined as the average time that a human lives from birth) and average lifespan of a healthy adult. The two numbers are usually quite different. The difference is because of child mortality. In almost all human societies, child mortality has been very high, which knocks down the average lifespan. But once a human reaches about the age of 18-20, he has survived plenty of diseases and so forth, and can expect to live many more years. The main threat to mortality after that has been accidents and unusual infectious diseases, like the Black Plague. Given that, we can also define the average maximum lifespan of a healthy adult as that of a person who experiences no accidents or unusual disease and dies of "old age" rather than a specifically identifiable cause.

So far as I've read, the average maximum lifespan of a healthy adult is about the same now as it was 4-5000 years ago. This is pretty much as expected in evolutionary terms. And one would also expect that this lifespan has changed little in hundreds of thousands of years.

AlanF

drwtsn32

We need to carefully distinguish between average lifespan (defined as the average time that a human lives from birth) and average lifespan of a healthy adult. The two numbers are usually quite different.

Excellent point. I didn't think of that when I was researching this.

Liberty

JH & Doogie,

I must have been writing at the same time you guys were. You made some great points and I didn't want it to look like I was just copying/mocking you.

Did our ancestors really live for hundreds of years?

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