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The Conversation USA

Old age isn't a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too

  • Written by Sharon DeWitte, Professor of Anthropology, University of South Carolina
imageIf you made it past early childhood, your chances got better to see your golden years.Grafissimo/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

Every year I ask the college students in the course I teach about the 14th-century Black Death to imagine they are farmers or nuns or nobles in the Middle Ages. What would their lives have been like in the face of...

Read more: Old age isn't a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too

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