Hundreds of years is kind of the near future with respect to the ~300,000 years we've existed (H. Sapiens, and tools) and the ~30,000 years since we started to

Hundreds of years is kind of the near future with respect to the ~300,000 years we've existed (H. Sapiens, and tools) and the ~30,000 years since we started to 'civilize' (art, descriptive cave paintings) even relative to agriculture (12,000 BP)