The wonders of modern medicine and nutrition make it easy to believe we enjoy longer lives than at any time in human history, but we may not be that special after all.
Over the last few decades, life expectancy has increased dramatically around the globe. The average person born in 1960, the earliest year the United Nations began keeping global data, . Today, the average is 72. In the UK, where records have been kept longer, this trend is even greater. In 1841, , a boy to 40. In 2016, ; a boy, 79.
The natural conclusion is that both the miracles of modern medicine and public health initiatives have helped us live longer than ever before – so much so that we may, in fact, be running out of innovations to extend life further. In September 2018, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that, in the UK at least, . Beyond the UK, .
This belief that our species may have reached the peak of longevity is also reinforced by some myths about our ancestors: it's common belief that ancient Greeks or Romans would have been flabbergasted to see anyone above the age of 50 or 60, for example.
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In fact, while medical advancements have improved many aspects of healthcare, the assumption that human life span has increased dramatically over centuries or millennia is misleading.
Overall life expectancy, which is the statistic reflected in reports like those above, hasn't increased so much because we're living far longer than we used to as a species. It's increased because more of us, as individuals, are making it that far.
"There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span," says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. "The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn't really changed much at all, as far as I can tell."
Life expectancy is an average. If you have two children, and one dies before their first birthday but the other lives to the age of 70, their average life expectancy is 35.
That's mathematically correct – and it certainly tells us something about the circumstances in which the children were raised. But it doesn't give us the full picture. It also becomes especially problematic when looking at eras, or in regions, where there are high levels of infant mortality. Most of human history has been blighted by poor survival rates among children, and .
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