First story in which apparent prehistoric people live in a post-apocalyptic world?

Question

Another question was posted that asked about one such story and it was rightly pointed out that there are many such stories.

What I am interested in is a specific thing: The first story in which at first the reader is led to believe it is taking place in our own distant past but it turns out it is our future, a future in which we have been reduced to savagery.

My guess is that this is a very old idea because, for example, Plato suggests a civilization that was more advanced than his own (I think). I know that as late as the 1600s, many in Europe believed that the ancients (Rome/Greece) somehow knew more than people of that time.

So the idea of a descent from a previous enlightened time to one less enlightened is very old. I am then guessing that even the 19th century has such stories. The Time Machine certainly shows the Time Traveler people who have descended, not exactly into savagery, but into something less than the people of his own time. But importantly, the TT knows this because he knows how many years into the future he has traveled.

An important aspect of the question is the element of surprise -- if not for the reader for the main character -- he might be a non-savage himself or he could be a "savage" who perhaps discovers that ancients existed who had great cities, etc.

Answer 1

Ok so based on your criteria the earliest story I can find would be planet of the apes.

This meets each of your initial criteria.

Humanity has been reduced to a savage caveman type existence.

The viewer and main characters has no idea that this is future earth until the very last scene.

But you change your criteria mid question because at the start you state the reader should have no idea. But you later suggest the Time Machine in which the reader is very clear that it is our earth on the future. The surprise is that humanity has evolved into 2 species. Taking this criteria, that the reader can know it is the future the Time Machine is probably the earliest example.

I am unable to find an earlier example that meets your requirements.

Your comments about Plato etc relate to real theories at the time as opposed to a work of total fiction. So they would not meet your criteria because they are presented as a form of possible fact in real life not a work of fiction.

It may be better if you clarify, the other question has this got to specifically be on earth?

Answer 2

Roger Corman's 1958 sci-fi film "Teenage Caveman" ( AKA "Out of the Darkness" and "Prehistoric World") is the earliest such story that I know of, though I doubt not that there are others.

Wikipedia synopsis: A tribe of primitive humans lives in a barren, rocky wasteland and struggle for survival, despite a lush, plant-filled land on the other side of a nearby river. They refuse to cross the river because of a law that evolved from an ancient tale warning of a god lurking there who brings death with a single touch. A young man of the tribe challenges the law and is eventually followed by other male members of his tribe, who fearfully cross the river in order to bring him back. They soon encounter the terrible god, a large, horribly burned but strangely human-like creature. Despite the young man's peace overture to the god, another tribal member, out of fear, lays a trap and stones the creature to death with a large rock; the young man then shoots and kills that tribesman with one of his arrows. The others gather around the now-dead god and discover that the creature is actually a much older man with long white hair. He is wearing some kind of strange, unknown outer garment with a fearful hood. They find another strange thing in the old man's possession; they are puzzled by this flat, thick object that opens and contains mysterious markings and vivid black, white and gray images that show an even stranger human world unknown to them. In a surprising denouement provided by the old man after his death, the truth is revealed in voice-over as the tribesmen page through his book: He was actually a survivor of a long-ago nuclear holocaust, forced to live for decades inside his now-ragged, discolored and bulky radiation suit (which is implied to have once been covered with deadly radioactive fallout). The old man has wandered the land for decades, while the primitive remnants of a devastated human race have slowly increased their numbers; his frightening outer appearance caused them to fear and shun him. A final, cautionary question is asked in voice-over by the old man: will humanity someday repeat its nuclear folly after civilization has once again risen to its former heights?

Jock London's post-apocalyptic story "The Scarlet Plague" (1912) also deals with a primitive culture following a civilized culture, but the characters, at the time-setting of the story (2073), are aware that they follow a more advanced society.

Answer 3

Since this hasn't garnered any answers, I am posting here my personal favorite example—although I'm pretty confident that it won't be the earliest:

"Sign of the Wolf" by Fred Saberhagen, a contribution to his Berserker series, first published in If in May 1965. It features a shepherd whose flocks are troubled by a marauding wolf in an apparently Iron Age civilization, although it becomes evident that the humans of his planet were once much more advanced.

“Here I am.” Duncan fell on his his knees before the metal thing that bellowed. In front of the god-shape lay woven twigs and eggshells, so old as to be hardly more than dust. Once priests had sacrificed here, and then they had forgotten this god.

“Here I am,” said Duncan again, in a louder voice.

The god heeded him, for the deafening shouting stopped.

“Response acknowledged, from defense control alternate 9,864,” said the god. “Planetary defenses now under control of post 9,864.”

The nature of the catastrophe that had occurred is never explored, but it is clear that something must have happened to knock the spacefaring civilization back into primitivism.

Answer 4

It might be the 1937 story By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benét. From this answer on another question:

On a similar note, "By the Waters of Babylon" was published before it became a standard trope of science fiction to have a young protagonist roaming around in a primitive world which used to be the home of a high-tech civilization.

Summary from Wikipedia:

Set in a future following the destruction of industrial civilization, the story is narrated by a young man who is the son of a priest. The priests of John's people (the Hill People) are inquisitive people associated with the divine. They are the only ones who can handle metal collected from the homes (called the "Dead Places") of long-dead people whom they believe to be gods. The plot follows John’s self-assigned mission to get to the Place of the Gods. His father allows him to go on a spiritual journey, not realizing John is going to this forbidden place.

John journeys through the forest for eight days and crosses the river Ou-dis-sun. Once John gets to the Place of the Gods, he feels the energy and magic there. He sees a statue of a "god"—in point of fact, a human—that says "ASHING" on its base. He also sees a building marked "UBTREAS". After being chased by dogs and climbing the stairs of a large building, John sees a dead god. Upon viewing the visage, he has an epiphany that the gods were humans whose power overwhelmed their good judgment. After John returns to his tribe, he tells his father of "the place New York." His father warns him against recounting his experiences to others in the tribe, for sometimes too much truth is a bad thing, that it must be told little by little. The story ends with John stating his conviction that, once he becomes the head priest, "We must build again."

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Waters_of_Babylon}

Having read the story, I can confirm that it's not known to the reader at the beginning that it takes place in the future. There are progressively larger hints through the story (the "river Ou-dis-sun" used to be known as the Hudson, the "ASHING" mentioned is a damaged bust of George Washington, while the "UBTREAS" is the Subtreasury building at Federal Hall), but it's not until the final paragraph that it's made explicit:

Nevertheless, we make a beginning. It is not for the metal alone we go to the Dead Places now—there are the books and the writings. They are hard to learn. And the magic tools are broken—but we can look at them and wonder. At least, we make a beginning. And, when I am chief priest we shall go beyond the great river. We shall go to the Place of the Gods—the place newyork—not one man but a company. We shall look for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others—the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses. But they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I remember the dead man's face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again.

The full story is available at the Broome-Tioga BOCES website.