I've heard many times about the shockingly brief (relative to contemporary standards) lifespans of people living in pre-modern societies. For, example, I understand the average life expectancy in the Roman empire was on the order of 28-30 years. My question is whether people enjoyed a period of senescence as they do today, or whether they were as healthy as everyone else until they simply dropped dead in the field one day? Additionally, were people cared for or venerated as elderly in the same way they are today if they would only ever live to the age of 30?
Part of the key to understanding pre-modern life spans is not to look at the aggregate data, but at rates of survival after one has reached a certain age. The aggregate numbers and fairly skewed because of infant and child mortality. If you made it to 20, you could probably expect to make it somewhere between 50 and 70, so old age wasn't hugely different than it is today.