Old folk can be canniest, surprisingly (8)

I believe the answer is:

ancients

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'old folk can' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.

'canniest surprisingly' is the wordplay.
'surprisingly' indicates an anagram (a surprising ordering of the letters).
'canniest' with letters rearranged gives 'ANCIENTS'.

'be' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for ancients that I've seen is " Pistol and Iago".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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