In reference to Dean's recent posting, here is the main point: THE idea that our ancestors died very young may be a myth based on a statistical error, according to a team of British archaeologists. They say a bias in the methods used for analysing human bones can underestimate the true age of death by as much as 30 years. It will be interesting to see what other archaeologists think about this (unlike the typical coverage in say, Science, in this article there was not any comment by the "skeptics"); perhaps one of you on this list could comment and perhaps keep us posted of developments? Steve Meyers