How we understand, talk about, and think about life expectancy is sometimes misunderstood by some flukes of math. Understanding how numbers work can illuminate a clearer picture of history and mortality. Long story short, (or short story shorter, this is a mini afterall), there have been old people who lived to be old (very old) for most or all of human history.  https://patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast Links:  - https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/life-expectancy#google_vignette - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4861644/ - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09