The low average life expectancy was not because adults died young but because child mortality (especially for children under 5) was sky-high.
There was also an article on here just yesterday about how we list ancient skeletons as "50+" instead of "75" years old because we can't distinguish ages of skeletons above 50, which also contributes to that misconception.
Long story short: a prehistoric human who made it to puberty had a pretty good chance of living to be 60-80, well past menopause.
The article was talking about 2000 years ago, not 15,0000 years ago that's a pretty big difference, not to mention that the article wasn't as much debunking things but falling into a huge selection bias fallacy by using historical figures as the basis for calculating the age who also often didn't live anywhere close to 80 years.
Pre-historic humans who made it to puberty didn't live anywhere near 60-80 years on average we have the plenty of skeletons to know that (in fact modern hunter gatherers who do benefit from some levels of outside intervention don't even get to that).
It's also important to note that unlike today or even later in history the age past puberty didn't sky rocket.
Women often died due to child birth, men died hunting dangerous game, and both often died to the elements as at the time we were still migratory and didn't live in settlements.
The low average life expectancy was not because adults died young but because child mortality (especially for children under 5) was sky-high.
There was also an article on here just yesterday about how we list ancient skeletons as "50+" instead of "75" years old because we can't distinguish ages of skeletons above 50, which also contributes to that misconception.
Long story short: a prehistoric human who made it to puberty had a pretty good chance of living to be 60-80, well past menopause.