>>
> Spot on. AFAIK (the anthropologists will correct) most pre
industrial
> (pre feudal as well?) societies revered the elderly for their
> experience and their knowledge, not mention the fact they had
survived
> to a venerable old age.
>
For what it is worth, one recent theory on human social evolution
suggests that the emergence of grandmothers was critical to our
development. That is, in most mammals old age leading soon to death
happens not too long after the end of prime fertility. But at some
point in human evolution we suddenly developed this longer life span,
with a fair number of people--especially women--living to the end of
their daughter's prime fertility. This allowed much more transmission
of long term lore (Oh, I remember a drought like this when I was a
girl, and the grandmothers told us to.....") , and freed many healthy
adult women to spend more time productively and less in child care.
Or so the theory goes.
I'm sure that this could be easily translated into myth--telling how
the people were little better than beasts, concerned only with eating,
mating, and fighting, before the first grandmothers arose. They
taught all the requirements of civilization, etc.
--Bryan