Average life span of a person in Ancient Greece?

[LSCatilina]

Without reliable demographics, it's impossible to say and give an actual statistic.

Every number would be only a guesstimate, and to be taken cautiously.

Considering that (for Middle Ages as en exemple) on 10 pesants, 4 are in bad situation, 4 in safe one, and 2 in good situation, even talking of "peasant life spawn" isn't making a great deal.

Now, a guesstimated average lifespawn (so, again, to take REALLY cautiously) is around 50/60 depending of the era and the place, after the 10 first years (and in the strong child deaths, you can count as well the stillborn childs) with only a child on two surviving (again, depending of where : towns childs have more odds).

From what I understood, the lifespawn didn't moved too much during History.

Around 40/50 in Antiquity and High Middle Ages, 50/60 in Middle Ages, etc.

Of course, depending of your situation, you have more or less odds to live old : a young roman officer from a wealthy family could have a less great one than the old slave of the same family.

 

[mrmandias]

One caution though. *ALL* estimates for mortality before modern record-keeping are provisional at best. They are all educated guesses.

Average life span is not a useful figure. People throw about average life spans about the past and then act like that's the age people typically lived to before dying of old age, which is simply not true, leading to the misconception that "living to 45 in the Middle Ages was a good age!" or other such nonsense. The average life span is artificially depressed downwards because of high infant mortality. But if you made it to the age of five, there was then nothing remarkable about making it to 60 or 70 or 80, even for peasants.

 

[mrmandias]

Infant mortality plus likelihood of death in battle, or as a direct consequence of wounds or disease from being in battle, shift the statistics in the direction of an unreal "average".

I'd say that if you lived to be 30, there would be nothing too surprising about living to be 70.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Add motherhood childbirth mortality to the list of major hazards.

 

[cimon]

This is exactly the myth Thande is trying to bust here.

yes I understand that,but that is how statistics works;Sophocles was described as the handsomest man in Athens and at that time(late in the peloponnesian war) he was 65 years old!...I have always said that statistics can leed to most absurd results;but in the dark ages it is close enough!

 

[LSCatilina]

yes I understand that,but that is how statistics works;Sophocles was described as the handsomest man in Athens and at that time(late in the peloponnesian war) he was 65 years old!...I have always said that statistics can leed to most absurd results;but in the dark ages it is close enough!

Close enough of what?
You need demographic sources, clear results. You don't have that before the XIV century. Statistics need data, not description of someone.

So on what are you basing your tought?

The better you can have, as guesstimate, is thanks to archeological founds, maybe the rare invetaries that survived up to nowadays. And, believe me, making statistics about merovingian population thanks to 400 bodies isn't possible.

I mean, we already have trouble to guesstimate the whole population, so giving a statistic about details? It's why todays, historians of demography prefers to give probablities rather than actual number and statistics.

 

[LSCatilina]

Add motherhood childbirth mortality to the list of major hazards.

Actually, maybe not that major. Granted it existed, but the number of non-married men seems to have been relativly low (still more important than today) and the demographical expansion continued.

For early XVIII century we have around 12 %o of such deaths. It's indeed really important for our standarts, but considering that women made many children (or, more precisely, you had an average high birthrate whatever the social strata, at least before the XIV century), it was somewhat compensated (not for the child of this birth tough, as he had many odds to not survive further than 10 years, more than other childs)

The deaths of the mother seems to have been more frequent when she already had childs before and when she was older (again, basing on later data).

The importance of motherhood childbirth death seems to have been less important than death in infancy, at the point of talking about "major" could be innacurate.

 

[Esopo]

Without reliable demographics, it's impossible to say and give an actual statistic.

Every number would be only a guesstimate, and to be taken cautiously.

Considering that (for Middle Ages as en exemple) on 10 pesants, 4 are in bad situation, 4 in safe one, and 2 in good situation, even talking of "peasant life spawn" isn't making a great deal.

Now, a guesstimated average lifespawn (so, again, to take REALLY cautiously) is around 50/60 depending of the era and the place, after the 10 first years (and in the strong child deaths, you can count as well the stillborn childs) with only a child on two surviving (again, depending of where : towns childs have more odds).

From what I understood, the lifespawn didn't moved too much during History.

Around 40/50 in Antiquity and High Middle Ages, 50/60 in Middle Ages, etc.

Of course, depending of your situation, you have more or less odds to live old : a young roman officer from a wealthy family could have a less great one than the old slave of the same family.

Why This improvement in Middle ages? And sources about it?

 

[LSCatilina]

Why This improvement in Middle ages? And sources about it?

Mainly due to agricultural improvements. The productive ratio seems to have passed to 1:2 to 1:4 (with, of course the bad years with a ratio of 1:0.8, but you had good years as well), and allowed to feed more people.
Of course, it's more true for classical MA, not for Early.

Hygienic practices : while the Romans certainly have these, it wasn't really widespread outside their cities. As the urbanisation of western Europe was in great part made during Middle-Ages (critically for the Atlantic facade, as well regions outside Roman Empire), it was widespread as well.

Furthermore, the use of arabic treaties of medecine helped to better births (as well contraception).

In fact, demographically speaking, the medieval Europe was kind of overpopulated, and that probably helped the epidemics to grow quickly and largely.

For sources about it :
-Bloch. Even if kind of depassed now, it's still considered as a reference.
-Noel Coulet. It's admittedly an analysis based on one village datas, but once said that you had religious variants, it's still an interesting source.
-Apparently, H.O. Lancaster, quoted there. . You'll argue that it's based on nobility data, but what we have seem to show they were as plagued by death in infancy, mother dying during birth (actually, maybe more than commoners, for some reasons) and...well, plague.

Again, the main cause of the tiny average lifespawn is the death in infancy, that touched every society before XIX, even among the elites.

Of course, as said, we're talking of forks guesstimated there. Prior to the XVII/XVIII, you'll have trouble to do better. So, to be used really cautiously, and not as revelated truth.

 

[Esopo]

So are agricultural improvement and hygiene better practices true Also for early Middle ages? And im Talking of ex roman ruled lands, not of germany, poland or scotland.

 

[LSCatilina]

So are agricultural improvement and hygiene better practices true Also for early Middle ages? And im Talking of ex roman ruled lands, not of germany, poland or scotland.

Not really. The agricultural improvment really began with post-carolingian times, and the Early MA were more or less in the same situation (productivally-speaking) than Late Roman Empire.

It's partially due to climatic situation, colder, but aslo to the economical and political situation that didn't required a real effort on agricultural "rationalisation".
The agricultural demesnes were still more or less on the late villa system.

For hygienic mesures, in Early Middle Ages, the population is more living on late roman features there again. Aqueducts and baths (almost always cold) were used and maintened where you had enough population. (Incidentally, you have many sources about existing and functioning aqueducts thanks to account of battles : Leovigild forcing a town to surrender by cutting of an aqueduct, Gontran taking a city back thanks to an aqueduct and its maintenance team...)

Now, you had clearly productive regions, but not the same rate than it happened after 900's.

It's basically why I put Early Middle Ages with Late Antiquity there. 40/50 seems a good fork for the whole population, once surviving childhood

 

[Abhakhazia]

With all the hygiene of the time period, a pleb in the first century AD in Italy could probably live to 45-50, an equestrian 55-70 and a patrician 60-75, patricians more likely to do so. Thing about the Roman Empire, Romans typically had good hygiene, but terrible medicine. Once you were sick with a semi-fatal disease, you died.
But being perfectly healthy, correct diet, bathing 2-4 times a week, surviving early childhood, and not going into very active war, these are very achievable dates.

 

[LSCatilina]

With all the hygiene of the time period, a pleb in the first century AD in Italy could probably live to 45-50, an equestrian 55-70 and a patrician 60-75, patricians more likely to do so.

That's not really working this way. We're totally unable to make forks for every social strata without reliable data. Being in the upper classes doesn't protect you automatically against epidemics, dying in war, etc, while being part of the lower agricultural classes could grant you a more regular approvisionment in food.

40/50 for the whole population as an average fork is probably all we could have taken that we only have archeologic remains (that doesn't tell us many about their social origin, if we don't have enough context). Further guesstimates, without support, would be even more speculative at a point where it's loosing any credibility.

Furthermore, focusing on an urban population and the features they could have that counted maybe 1/20 of the total population in the western provinces, isn't accurate. Many people didn't had an access to baths or medics (whatever good or not).

Finally, the patrician/plebeian distinction isn't really useful after the III century BCE. You could have rich plebeians and poor patricians : what mattered was humiliores/honestiores.