How Long Did People Use To Live?

By analyzing survivorship curves over the centuries, we can learn what’s changed about how - and when - humans die.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Life Expectancy At Birth: The average number of years a newborn in a particular group could expect to live.
Mortality Rate: The frequency of occurrence of death within a particular group during a particular time period.
Life Table: A table that shows the number of individuals within a group that survive from one year to the next until they are all dead.
Survivorship Curve: A plot of the data in a particular life table that shows the years on the x-axis and the number or percent of survivors on the y-axis.
Infant Mortality: The death of an infant before his or her first birthday.

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CREDITS
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David Goldenberg | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

OUR STAFF
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Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia i Rius
David Goldenberg • Julián Gustavo Gómez
Melissa Hayes • Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich
Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

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REFERENCES
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[danilooliveira]

I like how this video tackles both the misconceptions that people were considered ancient at their 50's back then, AND also the misconception it created that people lived just as much as today. in reality we don't just have more young people not dying, we also have a lot more old people surviving thanks to advanced medicine, guaranteeing that more people can reach 90 or even 100 years of age.

[OfficialRebellionK]

There are actually records for most of the Swedish population reaching as far back as the 1600s, although they aren't accessible in English, meaning the information does exist, it's just inaccessible to people foreign to Sweden and its' language

[germanfan]

This video is basically: well we tried, but here is some other neat stuff!

[Bill_Garthright]

"We now age like whales do."

Well, _that_ explains it! I've been wondering why I look more and more like a whale the older I get. :)

[KnowArt]

sad that the data is just not there. It would be hella interesting to see the curves of Neanderthals, romans, you name it. Still a great video. Impressive gains in early game for these humans

[empty_rivers]

That comment about how the rich & royals were often the only ones whose "life records" were kept raises an interesting point - since access to good healthcare tracks with other kinds of wealth/power (including the ability to pay someone to keep records of your life), do you think that the data we do have about human life expectancy should approximate the "best possible" life expectancy for the given time period, then?

Like, the mortality rate for mothers in certain parts of africa is as high as 1 in 15, IIRC, but with better access to medical services there's no reason to believe that number wouldn't fall in line with the maternal mortality rate in e.g. France.

[achanwahn]

We also have records of Greek and Roman merchants and nobles. Enough to have an average of how those who are comparatively affluent to modern counterparts could be partly calculated.

[modernkennnern]

2:00
That really is an incredible graph. I can't believe I got goosebumps over looking at two graphs

[c.i.demann]

another cool follow up video: the same graphs, only for plants. How many oak trees make it to year 1? Year 50? Year 500? How about other plants? Bamboo? Moss? Tumbleweeds?

[ssiddarth]

Great video, Someone should explain survival curves to journalists 😬

[theexplainedchannel]

Good video, Just wondering what would be our life expectancy 100 years from now, will medical technology add more years to our life?

[MukeshSharma-xjnh]

You know the video is gonna be good when subtitles are available just after the premier.

[ducky]

Thank you MinuteEarth for educating me whilst also entertaining me with your great videos 🙂

[fugithegreat]

The grammatical construct of "use to" or "used to" is kind of weirding me out. Now I want to go watch a video about that.

[andreimations]

Their vids get more and more interesting and fascinating within each vid that i feel like i could just quit school and study by watching videos like this

[dkecskes]

0:46 is the place to pause on for that note that pops up in the video.

[matthewbartke]

2:39 "Of Course those gains aren't evenly distributed" "and there is a ton of work to make sure all babies have the best chance for survival."

It looks like humanity has been doing a fantastic job for everyone. Those rich countries that have the lowest percentages also are the only reason low-income countries have had such a dramatic improvement and on a much higher volume of people. I think you need to spend more time celebrating those accomplishments than demonizing and belittling them as if proximity to innovation and wealth isn't a factor in the groups that benefit the most. It is logical that the people farthest from the innovation will get the least effects from it.

[JaybeePenaflor]

Life expectancy has gone up thanks to sanitation and healthcare. Thanks, science!

[justinlandon]

I like how you guys Frame (“white u.s males”) in the way you did it really makes me decipher your credibility.

[sebastienpineau]

Actually, I have record of a set of 2000 of my ancestors, (meaning people who lived long enough to have children). They were mostly common people from a rural area in east France. My older records are from 1480 and I was very surprised to see that the average death age is 60 years old. Very stable, even decreasing a bit at the end of 19th century. Of course it spikes after WW2, but that is questioning the way we look at data.