Why do humans live to be old when most animals don’t? Pop psychology weighs in

I read some years ago about a study done in Scotland/northern Britain of OLD burials. And the average age of a buried female was something like 17, while the average age of buried male was 19 or something. High infant mortality undoubtedly helped keep the averages down, but food was scarce and medical treatment was unknown. There is a tale recorded by some English explorers (a young Darwin?) in the far South of South America in which the local tribe is sitting around on the rocks trying not to freeze to death, and one of the males simply walks over and whacks an old woman on the head with his club, killing her. The man-pack then calmly goes about preparing grandma for dinner. The appalled Englanders asked the locals why they hadn't killed one of their dogs instead, and the reply was, "Dog catch seal." That is, a healthy dog could produce more food than a sickly woman. Everybody has to die SOMETIME. Your time came today. mahuna

In some cultures the old are honored. It's not a constant human characteristic by any means. polistra

I've long wondered why we haven't evolved to live longer and why we haven't evolved to be reproductively fertile longer. You'd think there'd be tremendous positive selection pressure on any genetic mutations that promoted either chronological or reproductive longevity, or both, but despite Darwinian assurances that mutation and natural selection can accomplish the most astonishing feats, and even though an increase in longevity would seem to be an easy lift for NS&GM, there doesn't seem to be much evolution going on in that regard. Anybody have a plausible reason why? Dick