>>>> Andrew
>>>> Don't take the figure of average life expectancy = 40 years too
>>>> seriously. If you think about it carefully you will realise that using
>>>> the mean to portray this distribution is very misleading and may well be
>>>> totally invalid. The distribution at least bimodal (see below).
>>>>
>>>> 1) Historically infant mortality is very high (pretty much where ever and
>>>> when ever you are set).
>>>>
>>>> 2) Medicine is generally less effective than today so people are picked
>>>> off by disease and accidents (although generally it is the weaker ones
>>>> who succumb this is by no means always true).
>>>>
>>>> 3) Quite a few women die in childbirth (especially if there is a complication)
>>>> due to lack of advanced medical techniques).
>>>>
>>>> 4) Wars tend to result is large numbers of deaths in the (fit) adult male
>>>> population.
>>>>
>>>> 5) Women who reach the change of life have survived the trials of their sex and are likely to survive quite a bit longer.
>>>>
>>>> 6) Likewise men who are too old (or invalided) to fight.
>>>>
>>>> 7) People lead healthy active lives, did not eat junk food and did not get
>>>> as stressed out as we do today. So provided they avoided disease, survived
>>>> childhood and giving birth/wars and got enough to eat there is no reason
>>>> why they should not live at least as long a we do today.
>>>>
>>>> Well as you can see the mean is pretty useless in theis case.
>>>>
>>>> Lewis
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