Skeleton Bias

@DanDavisHistory
Where Are All The Prehistoric Women?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gHJ6VMZRE6Q

One reason is independent of how they died or were buried, if they got buried.

Bones decay, and thinner bones decay quicker, and adult men have denser and thicker bones.

The video does suggest a bias about burial too, as if the bias from bones weren't sufficient.

Now, as a Young Earth Creationist, as adhering to the Biblical Chronology, I do have some input to give.

In the pre-Flood world, as in Lower Palaeolithic and up to "40 000 years ago" there were cities, but we don't find them.

What we do find from that time is a bit like finding Chingachgook and possibly Natty Bumppo, but strictly only in the settings of Chingachgook, never in the kind of city-scape or country-side that Natty Bumppo was arguably from.

And it is possible that such people of "palaeolithic habits" (in a world that had cities, bronze and iron, cf Genesis 4 verses 17 and 22) were not populations, but more like clubs, specifically sometimes men's clubs. In the cases of deliberate burial, we would perhaps be likelier to find important men buried outside the cities, like Attila's and Genghis Khan's tombs are said to have been hidden in nature and those constructing them killed. People receiving that kind of treatment would more probably be men than women or children.

But when it comes to the Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic, there is another part to this.

Noah died at the very end of the Upper Palaeolithic or perhaps in his region already Mesolithic, 350 years after the Flood. That's carbon dated to c. 9500 BC. Anything between then and back to 37 000 BC = 39 000 BP would have been people dying prematurely.

So, what about the Mesolithic? Actually, for the Middle East, 20 000 to 10 000 BP are already Mesolithic, so no, I must admit I was wrong. As I look it up. But for Europe, the Mesolithic is 15 000 to 5000 BP. How much of it is passed when Shem dies, or Arphaxad?

Carbon Dated

13 000 BC

2691 BC

Eber born

2686 BC

24.08 pmC, dated as 14,456 BC

2391 BC

Arphaxad died

2373 BC

61.194 pmC, dated as 6433 BC

1793 BC

Ishmael died

1779 BC

85.963 pmC, dated as 3029 BC

Carbon Dated

5000 BC

So, in terms of real years, the time from birth of Eber to death of Arphaxad is the smaller part, 300 years, while death of Arphaxad to death of Ishmael is the larger part, 600 years.

However, in terms of carbon years, the time from the birth of Eber to the death of Arphaxad is the larger part, 8023 carbon years, while the death of Arphaxad to the death of Ishmael is the smaller part 3404 years.

In the larger part of the carbon years prior to Arphaxad's death, and even beginning the next period, those dying prematurely will have outnumbered those who died at mature old age.

This is also why skeleta have a tendency to be anatomically age 40, since a man dying at 100 in the generation of Eber would have been physiologically closer to 40 than to 80.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
24.IV.2026

Sevisii, in Rhaetia, sancti Fidelis a Sigmaringa, Sacerdotis ex Ordine Minorum Capuccinorum et Martyris; qui, illuc ad praedicandam catholicam fidem missus, ibidem, ab haereticis interemptus, martyrium consummavit; et a Benedicto Decimo quarto, Pontifice Maximo, inter sanctos Martyres relatus est.

I gave excerpts from tables on Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt.