You might have seen the cartoon: two cavemen sitting outside their cave knapping stone tools. One says to the other: ‘Something’s just not right – our air is clean, our water is pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic and free-range, and yet nobody lives past 30.’
你也许见过这样一幅漫画：两个穴居人坐在他们的洞穴外，敲敲打打着石具。其中一个人对另一个说：「有些地方不对劲呀--我们呼吸新鲜的空气，饮用干净的水，伴有大量的运动，并且吃的都是都是自由放养的有机食物，但是我们中还没有人能活过30岁。」
This cartoon reflects a very common view of ancient lifespans, but it is based on a myth. People in the past were not all dead by 30.
这幅漫画反映了我们对于古代人寿命的普遍看法，但这只是迷思而已。事实上古人并没有在30岁之前全部死掉。
Ancient documents confirm this. In the 24th century BCE, the Egyptian Vizier Ptahhotep wrote verses about the disintegrations of old age. The ancient Greeks classed old age among the divine curses, and their tombstones attest to survival well past 80 years. Ancient artworks and figurines also depict elderly people: stooped, flabby, wrinkled.
古代文献证实了这一点。公元前24世纪，埃及人维齐尔·普塔霍特普（Vizier Ptahhotep）写过关于老年衰败的诗句。古希腊人将老年视为神圣的诅咒，他们的墓碑证实了其80岁以上的高龄。古代艺术品和雕像也描绘了老年人：弯腰，松弛，皱纹。
This is not the only type of evidence, however. Studies on extant traditional people who live far away from modern medicines and markets, such as Tanzania’s Hadza or Brazil’s Xilixana Yanomami, have demonstrated that the most likely age at death is far higher than most people assume: it’s about 70 years old.
然而，这些并不是唯一的证据。通过对那些远离现代医药及市场的现存「原始人」（如坦桑尼亚的 Hadza 或巴西的 Xilixana Yanomami）的研究发现，最有可能的死亡年龄比大多数人想象中的要高得多--大约在70岁。
One study found that although there are differences in rates of death in various populations and periods, especially with regards to violence, there is a remarkable similarity between the mortality profiles of various traditional peoples.
一项研究发现，虽然不同族群以及不同时期的死亡率存在差异（特别涉及到暴力时），但是各种原始族群的死亡率有着显著的相似之处。
So it seems that humans evolved with a characteristic lifespan. Mortality rates in traditional populations are high during infancy, before decreasing sharply to remain constant till about 40 years, then mortality rises to peak at about 70.
人类的寿命似乎有着典型的特征。原始族群的死亡率，在婴儿时期极高，接着急剧下降，平缓持续到大约40岁，然后在70岁左右达到高峰。
Most individuals remain healthy and vigorous right through their 60s or beyond, until senescence sets in, which is the physical decline where if one cause fails to kill, another will soon strike the mortal blow.
大多数人在60多岁或以上依旧保持着健康与活力，直到衰老来临时，这是一种身体的衰退，如果一个原因不能致命，另一个很快就会予以致命一击。
So what is the source of the myth that those in the past must have died young? One is to do with what we dig up. When ancient human remains are found, archaeologists and biological anthropologists examine the skeletons and attempt to estimate their sex, age and general health.
那么，这种古人早逝的迷思从何得来的呢？其中之一就是我们的考古挖掘。当人类遗骸被发现时，考古学家和生物人类学家检查这些骨骼，并试图估算他们的性别、年龄以及健康状况。
Markers of growth and development, such as tooth eruption, provide relatively accurate age estimates of children. With adults, however, estimates are based on degeneration.
对于儿童的年龄，生长和发育的标志物（比如出牙）提供了相对准确的估算。但对于成年人的年龄估算，则是基于退化（degeneration）的。
We are all able to instinctively label people as ‘young’, ‘middle-aged’ or ‘old’ based on appearance and the situations in which we encounter them. Similarly, biological anthropologists use the skeleton rather than, say, hair and wrinkles.
依据这个人的外貌以及相遇时的环境，我们都能够本能地将人分为「年轻」、「中年」或「老年」。而生物人类学家的判断是基于骨骼，而非头发和皱纹之类的。
We term this ‘biological age’ as our judgment is based on the physical (and mental) conditions that we see before us, which relate to the biological realities of that person.
我们的判断是基于自己眼前的这个人的身体（和心理）状况，这些状况与这个人的生物现实有关，我们称之为「生物学年龄」（biological age）。
These will not always correlate with an accurate calendar age, as people are all, well, different. Their appearance and abilities will be related to their genetics, lifestyle, health, attitudes, activity, diet, wealth and a multitude of other factors.
这些并不总是符合精确的日历年龄（calendar age），因为人们各不相同。他们的外表和能力取决于遗传基因、生活方式、健康、态度、活动、饮食、财富以及其他众多的因素。
These differences will accumulate as the years increase, meaning that once a person reaches the age of about 40 or 50, the differences are too great to allow any one-size-fits-all accuracy in the determination of the calendar age, whether it is done by eye on a living person or by the peer-preferred method of skeletal ageing.
这些差异会随着年龄的增长而累积，这意味着一旦一个人超过40岁或50岁，差异就大到无法精确地测定日历年龄。无论是通过对活人进行目测，还是采用同行首选的骨骼老化方法。
The result of this is that those older than middle age are frequently given an open-ended age estimation, like 40+ or 50+ years, meaning that they could be anywhere between forty and a hundred and four, or thereabouts.
结果导致那些中年以上的人经常被赋予一个开放式的年龄估算，比如40岁以上或50岁以上，这意味着他们的年龄范围可能在40岁到104岁之间或左右。
The very term ‘average age at death’ also contributes to the myth. High infant mortality brings down the average at one end of the age spectrum, and open-ended categories such as ‘40+’ or ‘50+ years’ keep it low at the other.
「平均死亡年龄」（average age at death）也助长了此迷思。极高的婴儿死亡率导致年龄范围（age spectrum）一端的平均值下降，而「40岁以上」或「50岁以上」等开放式的估算也降低了年龄范围另一端的平均值。
We know that in 2015 the average life expectancy at birth ranged from 50 years in Sierra Leone to 84 years in Japan, and these differences are related to early deaths rather than differences in total lifespan.
我们知道，2015年的「出生时平均预期寿命」从塞拉利昂的50岁到日本的84岁不等，这些差异与早逝有关，而非总寿命的差异。
A better method of estimating lifespan is to look at life expectancy only at adulthood, which takes infant mortality out of the equation; however, the inability to estimate age beyond about 50 years still keeps the average lower than it should be.
一个更好的预测寿命的方法是，只计算成年人的预期寿命，这能够将婴儿死亡率排除在外；然而，无法准确的估算50岁以上人的年龄，仍然使平均寿命低于其应有的水平。
Archaeologists’ age estimates, therefore, have been squeezed at both ends of the age spectrum, with the result that individuals who have lived their full lifespan are rendered ‘invisible’. This means that we have been unable to fully understand societies in the distant past.
因此，考古学家的年龄估算，是在年龄范围的两端受到挤压，其结果是那些年老的个体被「忽视」（invisible）了。这意味着我们无法充分理解远古社会。
In the literate past, functioning older individuals were mostly not treated much differently from the general adult population, but without archaeological identification of the invisible elderly, we cannot say whether this was the case in non-literate societies.
在有文字社会的过去，健康的老年人与普通成年人的待遇往往区别不大，但如果没有对被忽视的老年人进行考古鉴定，我们不能说在无文字社会也是如此。
My colleague Marc Oxenham and I wanted to understand early societies more fully so we developed a method for bringing to light the invisible elderly. This method is applicable only to cemetery populations that have seen little change over the life of the cemetery, and without massive inequality between the inhabitants.
我和同事 Marc Oxenham 想要更充分地了解早期社会，因而发明了一种方法来揭示这些被忽视的老年人。这种方法仅适用于在墓地发现的种群，其生活变动不大，而且居民之间不存在巨大的不平等。
That way it can be assumed that the people ate similar foods, and behaved in similar ways with their teeth. One such cemetery is Worthy Park near Kingsworthy, Hampshire, where Anglo-Saxons buried their loved ones some 1,500 years ago. It was excavated in the early 1960s.
这样就可以假设人们吃了类似的食物，其牙齿的使用状况也相似。其中一个墓地就是位于汉普郡（Hampshire）金斯沃西（Kingsworthy）附近的沃西公园（Worthy Park），大约1500年前，盎格鲁-撒克逊人（Anglo-Saxons）在那里埋葬了他们的亲人。在20世纪60年代早期被挖掘出来。
位于威尔特郡（Wiltshire）索尔斯堡平原（Salisbury Plain）巴罗克兰普（Barrow Clump）的盎格鲁-撒克逊人（Anglo-Saxon）墓地。图：Rexfeatures。
We measured the wear on the teeth of these people, and then seriated the population from those with the most worn teeth – the oldest – to those with the least worn.
我们测量了这些人的牙齿磨损情况，然后从牙齿磨损最严重的（即最年老的）到磨损最轻微的，进行了排序。
We did this for the whole population, not just the elderly, to act as a control. We then matched them against a known model population with a similar age structure, and allocated the individuals with the most worn teeth to the oldest ages.
作为对照控制，我们对整个种群这样做，而不仅仅是老年人。然后，我们将序列结果与一个具有相似年龄结构的已知模型种群（model population）进行比较，并且将牙齿磨损最严重的对应为最年老的。
By matching the Worthy Park teeth to the model population, the invisible elderly soon become visible. Not only were we able to see how many people lived to a grand old age, but also which ones were 75 years or older, and which were a few years past 50.
通过将沃西公园种群的牙齿与模型种群相对应，被忽视的老年人很快就变得清晰可见。我们不仅能够知道有多少人活到了高龄，而且能知道其中哪些人的寿命超过75岁以上，哪些人超过50岁。
Seeing the invisible elderly has led to other discoveries. It has often been suggested that more men than women lived to older age in the past because of the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, but our study suggests otherwise.
被忽视的老年人的研究也带来了其他的发现。人们常常认为，由于怀孕以及分娩的危险，古代老年人中的男性数目应该多于女性。但是我们的研究表明，事实并非如此。
We applied our method to two other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as well – Great Chesterford in Essex and the one on Mill Hill, in Deal, Kent – and found that, of the three oldest individuals from each cemetery, seven were women and only two were men. Although not conclusive proof, this suggests that older age spans for women might be part of the human condition.
我们将这种方法运用到另外两个盎格鲁-撒克逊墓地：位于埃塞克斯郡（Essex）的大切斯特福德（Great Chesterford）墓地和肯特郡（Kent）的密尔山（Mill Hill）墓地。这三个墓地，每个墓地选取年龄最大的三个人，合计九个人，其中有七个是女性，只有两个是男性。尽管不是确凿的证据，但这表明女性更加长寿可能是人类普遍的状况。
We also looked at the treatment of the elderly in their graves. Anglo-Saxon men were often buried with weapons while women were buried with brooches and jewellery including beads and pins.
我们还研究了老年人的丧葬待遇。盎格鲁-撒克逊男人常常拥用武器作为陪葬，而女性则拥有胸针和珠宝（包括珍珠以及别针）作为陪葬。
This suggests that men were identified by their martial qualities, while women were admired for their beauty. Men also maintained or increased their status in their graves well into their 60s, while women’s ‘value’ peaked in their 30s and declined further as they aged.
这显示了男性的身份是由其勇武品质所决定的，而女人则因其美貌而受到赞赏。男性在60多岁时仍然保持或提升了自己在坟墓中的地位，而女性的「价值」（value）在30多岁时达到顶峰，之后随着年龄增长而逐步下降。
Intriguingly, the class of item most likely to be found in the graves of the elderly rather than younger individuals was the grooming tool. The most common of these was tweezers, and most of these were buried with old men. Did this mean that old men were concerned about their looks? Or that old women were too far from beauty for tweezers or other grooming items to help?
有趣的是，修饰工具是最有可能从老年人的坟墓中发掘出的物品，而不是从年轻人的。这类物品中最常见的是镊子，其中大部分都与老年男性一同埋葬。这是否意味着老年男性更关心自己的容貌？或者说，老年女性的容颜不在，已经无需镊子或其他美容用具了。
Findings such as these provide a glimpse into the lives of people of the past, a glimpse that was impossible without identifying the invisible elderly.
诸如此类的发现让我们得以窥见古人的生活，这归功于这些被忽视的老年人的身份界定。
The maximum human lifespan (approximately 125 years) has barely changed since we arrived. It is estimated that if the three main causes of death in old age today – cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cancer – were eliminated, the developed world would see only a 15-year increase in life expectancy.
有史以来，人类的最长寿命（约125岁）几乎没有变化。 据估计，如果导致当今老年人死亡的三个主要原因（心血管疾病、中风和癌症）被克服，发达国家的预期寿命只会增加15年而已。
While an individual living to 125 in the distant past would have been extremely rare, it was possible. And some things about the past, such as men being valued for their power and women for their beauty, have changed little.
虽然在远古时代活到125岁，极其罕见，但也并非不可能。关于过去的一些事实，比如男人因其力量而被重视，女人因其美貌而受珍重，这在当今几乎没有任何的改变。（历史总是惊人的相似！！）
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原文：aeon.co/ideas/think-everyone-died-young-in-ancient-societies-think-again?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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