For most of history, life expectancy at birth hovered around 30 years. That doesn't mean adults typically died at 30: the average was dragged down by appalling child mortality, with roughly half of all children dying before adolescence. Those who made it through often lived into their 50s or 60s. Today, global life expectancy is above 70.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.