What was the typical lifespan of hunter-gatherer societies in the Paleolithic era?

The average life expectancy at birth: a short but misleading number

For Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, the most commonly quoted figures for average lifespan are life expectancy at birth. These numbers are generally low, with estimates typically ranging from 20 to 33 years [6][12][27][24][28]. Some researchers place the average around 25 years [2], while others suggest a mean of about 31 years (with a range of 21–37) [11], and a few indicate it might have been as low as 20 years [9] or as high as the late 30s [6][15]. The number 30 years often pops up as a simple rule of thumb [1][24].

However, that low figure doesn’t mean most people dropped dead at 30 – it’s heavily skewed by something else.

Why so low? The brutal reality of infant and child mortality

The main drag on the average was an astonishing number of deaths in infancy and childhood. Hunter-gatherer communities saw infant mortality rates anywhere from 14% to 40% [23], with a typical average around 27% [23]. Overall, about 20% to 50% of children did not survive to adulthood [3][26]. Childhood mortality could be up to 100 times higher than in modern societies [16]. So for every person who lived to old age, several died very young – that’s what pulls the “average” down.

The real story: long lives for those who survived childhood

Once a person made it past the danger zone (say, to about age 15), the outlook improved dramatically. Hunter-gatherers who reached adolescence frequently lived into their 70s [8][18][4]. The modal adult lifespan – that is, the most common age at death for adults – sat around 70 years [7][25], with a typical range of 68–78 years [17]. In modern forager groups like the Tsimané of Bolivia, the modal lifespan is 70 years [5]. Essentially, if you survived childhood, you aged roughly the same way we do and had a good chance of becoming a septuagenarian or older [4][8][16].

A few caveats and historical context

• Some experts note that reconstructions of prehistoric survival can be uncertain. One study’s model, for instance, comes with important caveats and might be too pessimistic [10].
• When comparing eras, Mesolithic (later Stone Age) populations appear to have lived longer than their Paleolithic predecessors [14], so the earlier period really was a tougher time for making it to old age.

In short: If someone asks “what was the typical lifespan?”, the answer depends on what you mean. If you mean life expectancy from birth, it was a grim 20–33 years – thanks mostly to sky-high infant mortality. But if you mean how long a person could expect to live once they’d survived childhood, the typical Paleolithic adult could well reach their 70s, not so different from us.