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girnigoe t1_iyw7me0 wrote

Reply to comment by Mark7A in Meet a medieval woman named 'Tora' who lived 800 years ago in Norway by patatesogan

yeah, I thought the picture was ridiculous, why show her as an old person rather than in the prime of her life? But I guess (after reading the article) that that’s what skeletal info they had.

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teatiller t1_iyxbgso wrote

She’s supposed to be 65 and she looks 85.Maybe people lied about their age back then too

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Hammer_of_Light t1_iyxhhkh wrote

That's pretty old at a time when life expectancies sometimes didn't hit 40...

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uqde t1_iyz1zpo wrote

AFAIK this statistic is often misrepresented; the average life expectancy was lower, but largely due to infant and child mortality. Once you made it past 12 or so, you could reasonably expect to live a similar length of time as people in the modern era.

However, your point is still valid in a way. Life back then was physically harder and the state of healthcare was obviously nowhere near what it is now. People likely showed their age much more quickly than people today.

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