[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Coyoteman]

Another good one. Thanks!

[FairOpinion]

"The lifespan of our ancestors made a dramatic leap 32,000 years ago, allowing people to grow older and wiser, according to a study of hundreds of ancient teeth that is published today.

The wear on the teeth suggest that longevity more than quadrupled at that time, a jump that may have been the key factor that shaped modern civilisation. Before then lifespan had increased only steadily."

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[SlickWillard]

Lifespan extended dramatically in the early Upper Palaeolithic Period, around 30,000bc, when Homo sapiens - modern man - was becoming established in Europe. The American team believes there had to be a distinct evolutionary advantage to large numbers of people growing older, which in turn enabled still more of our ancestors to live longer.

Knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about paleoanthropology, how much d'ya wanna bet this was precisely the point at which early man harnassed fire?

Other candidates might be: Discovered seed-based plant agriculture, discovered husbandry-based animal agriculture, discovered spoken language, discovered the idea of rudimentary written notations, discovered the spear [probably just a tad early for bows and arrows],...

Or maybe was privy to a little divine intervention?

[Dysart]

Great find. Article mentions that it's difficult to speculate on the causes for the longevity jump, but my money is on a great advancement in communication. Yea, they already had a primitive language, but I propose that this was the time when it became more structured. No matter what other innovations were put forth at this time, without the ability to communicate these ideas, they would have been limited in scope.

[curmudgeonII]

The wear on the teeth suggest that longevity more than quadrupled at that time...

Absolute nonsense. If the average life span had been 25 years, a figure which seems to be way too low, according to the authors the average longevity would then have jumped up to 100.

[Lester Moore]

By calculating the ratio of old-to-young individuals in the samples, the scientists found that the number of surviving older people increased throughout human evolution.

And the sample is how many?

[PoorMuttly]

.....or did they learn to stone-grind foods and grain and thereby consume more abrasive particles, accelerating tooth wear........... ......or did the older generations start worrying about the younger's behavior and future...and grind their teeth as they slept..... ....or..

[VadeRetro]

Crevo implications ping.

[bannie]

Society's still being shaped by old age. The older I get the more my "society" changes.

:-p

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[night reader]

And it would have encouraged the passing of information from old and experienced individuals to younger generations, the "grandmother hypothesis"- grandmothers are useful because of the knowledge they hand on to their reproductive-age daughters, and their daughters' children.

The Barakamites see no value to the elderly! Throw'em under the bus!!!