On Wed, 20 May 2015 08:01:19 -0300, wrote:

>I know that most cave people did not live long lives, mostly dead by
>forty.

How do YOU know? What evidence do YOU have that they died young?

There is no evidence that they had short lives, though certainly some of
them had accidents and got eaten by other animals. It used to take about 16
years to reach sexual maturity. Then another nine months to produce a baby.
They breast fed for years. This keeps the prolactin level high, which makes
it hard to get pregnant again. Then include infant mortality. If the life
extended only to about 40, as a race we would have died off.

We know two things about their life expectancy: One is looking at their
bones and teeth they look like bones of a 40 year old today. This does not
mean they were 40! They did not have the diseases of civilization that now
plague us. So no reason to expect their bones to degenerate like ours do
today.

And second, based on menopause being nature's way to not have a woman waste
the effort of raising a kid and dying before they were self-sufficient, one
can assume that they lived to about age 70. Female elephants also go
through menopause -- at around 50. It takes about 20 years for an elephant
to be on its own. And you will find that their life expectancy is 70 years.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).