Back then they barely lived past their 20s, I assume they spent more time worrying about red meat eating them.

What’s the source for that?

Generally what's going on with claims of short premodern lifespans is that people are confused over the difference between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at 10 years.

You are incorrect, Wikipedia [1] cites [2] to suggest that the expected lifespan at age 15 was 28-33.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over...

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5791021

No, they are correct - that is generally what happens when people compare historic life expectancy rates to modern times.

And, people are using 'lifespan' and 'life expectancy' as if they were interchangeable (they're different things).

Your Wikipedia source states up front that the linked research is old and questionable, with the cited paper dating back over 50 years. More recent research, some of it linked here [0], does indeed point to a significantly longer life expectancy.

No idea why Wikipedia is using incorrect 55 yo data for this one; but it does help to prove OP's point further.

0 - https://rewild.com/in-depth/longevity.html

Maybe I'm misreading something, but it looks like you cited the expected lifespan at birth. To the right, in the paleolithic section, it says:

life expectancy for the 60% reaching age 15 averages 39 remaining years.

So the average expected lifespan of someone who reached 15 years old was 54 years.

I'm citing the neolithic data one row below it, since 13,000 years is near the end of the paleolithic era.

How does that logic work? Doesn't it imply that you'd prefer the paleolithic row for a date 11,000 years ago?

Has anyone revisited the question since 1969?

I've no idea, I'm not an anthropologist. Are you?

Here's how the logic works: I am stating that a person who clearly has a bone to pick with people who say red meat is bad for you, is misdirecting their ire in a thread about people who ate a lot of red meat 13,000 years ago. If you want to push the expected life expectancy I quoted up by 10-15 years, please do so, I don't mind.

Here's another paper on the topic: https://gurven.anth.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.anth...