HG Wells Time Machine might qualify, but it imagined humanoid life following humanity's inevitable decline in the far flung future. I don't suppose that imagini

HG Wells Time Machine might qualify, but it imagined humanoid life following humanity's inevitable decline in the far flung future. I don't suppose that imagining this backwards instead of forwards in time would have been too much of a stretch. The heavy influence of Abrahamic religions up to the time might have influenced early scifi writers to treat the far flung "future" as a safer topic for allegory, metaphor, or thought experiment than the religiously more significant past I guess, especially with the relatively rapid rate of invention and change represented by industrialization. I've always wondered where the phrase 'silurian hypothesis' came from. I never imagined it came from an ancient doctor who episode.