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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joice_Heth

P. T. Barnum traveled with this person, whom he claimed was 161 years old.

She was, in fact, about 80 when she died.

Even 80 wasn't that exceptional.

In 1910 there were over 200,000 people in England & Wales aged over 80; about 1 in 170 of the population.

(Calculations based on data from http://www.mortality.org/)

The way that life expectancy works is that it was low because so many people died of disease in their youth that it dragged the average down. But people who lived to old age still lived to what we would consider an old age today. There would just be fewer people who lived that long, but not dramatically fewer.