Antediluvians (Art by Noah Bradley)
Antediluvians, also known as Edenim, Protoplasts, and Adamites (male) or Eveians (female), are ancient primeval humans that are regarded as the earliest and the first known humans to ever set foot on the planet. Antediluvian is a term that can be attributed to not just humans but also other species that are considered to be the earliest of their kind.
History
Origins
In the beginning they resided within the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve specifically, and it was revealed that Adam and Eve were not the only humans first created by the Abrahamic god barring Lilith and Eve's other sisters. Other humans were created by the deities of polytheistic myth such as Pandora, Ask and Embla, or Wurugag and Waramurungundi, but they resided in their own gardens fashioned by the gods. Adam and Eve dwelling intercrossed between the heavens and the Earth, and was believed to be the continent of Lemuria where they first arrived to the planet.
After the Fall of Man, the resulting event created a dramatic shift in the workings of creation and set the cosmic wheels in motion. The gods, knowing that they too are bound by the ancient laws of the Natural Order, also placed their own creations upon the Earth and saw to it that they develop and grow as well as populate the planet alongside Adam and Eve. When they expanded out across the world, they established the first known empire in the lost continent of Hyperborea and came to be known as the Hyperboreans, its capital being Eridu. Cain's descendants, known as the Cainites who too were antediluvians, dwelt within the land of Nod and resided in the great city of Uruk or Enoch.
Great Deluge
In the Christian Bible and Hebrew Torah, the antediluvian period ends with the destruction of all life on the earth except those saved with Noah in the ark (Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives). It is said that the antediluvian period lasted for 1656 years, from Creation (some say the fall of man) at 4004 BC to the Flood at 2348 BC. The elements of the narrative include some of the best-known stories in the Bible – the creation, Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, followed by the genealogies tracing the descendants of Cain and Seth, the third mentioned son of Adam and Eve.
The Bible speaks of this bygone era as being a time of great wickedness. There were Elioud (giants) in the earth in those days as well as Nephilim; some Bible translations identify the two as one and the same. The Elioud were unusually powerful; Genesis calls them "mighty men which were of old, men of renown". Nevertheless, the descendants of the Nephilim, that being the Gibborim reappear much later in the biblical narrative, in Numbers 13:31–33 (where the spies sent forth by Moses report that there were 'Nephilim' or "giants" in the promised land).
Description
Biology
Pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs in the Antediluvian age
Antediluvians were, more or less, resembled much like how modern humans are these days but according to Immanuel they were said to be "more impressive" when it came to their physical and mental attributes. Not much else is known about them other than that they were noted to be stronger, more intelligent, powerful and very independent with some not even requiring the need of divine intervention. Their biology allowed them to conquer diseases with researchers from the Department of Antediluvian Research in the Federal Bureau of Control stating that the fossil records indicate that there were no genetic disorders, no viruses or cancers and were thus considered to be naturally superior to modern humans. Their intelligence is advanced to where, according to Professor Broom, they would know things that the history and geography books could only speculate at. They even were purported to have a lifespan that was far more extensive than modern humans as Adam was said to have lived till the age of 930.
Geology
The antediluvian period also had minerals that were either buried beneath the Earth after the Great Flood or were destroyed. Prior to the 19th century, rock was classified into three main types: primary or primitive (igneous and metamorphic rock), secondary (sedimentary rock) and tertiary (sediments). The primary rocks (like granite and gneiss) are void of fossils and were thought to be associated with the very creation of the world in the primary Pre-Adamitic period. The secondary rocks, often containing copious fossils, though human remains had not been found, were thought to have been laid down in the secondary Pre-Adamitic period. The Tertiary rocks (sediments) were thought to have been put down after Creation and possibly in connection to a flood event, and were thus associated with the Adamitic period. The Post-Flood period was termed the Quaternary, a name still in use in geology.
Antediluvian Monsters
From antiquity, fossils of large animals were often quoted as having lived together with the giants from the Book of Genesis: e.g. the Tannin or "great sea monsters" of Gen 1:21. They are often described in later books of the Bible, especially by God himself in the Book of Job: e.g. Re'em in verse 39:9, Behemoth in chapter 40 and Leviathan in chapter 41. The Turok-Han, the oldest known species of vampire, are also regarded as antediluvian monsters since they were around during the days of Lilith and ancient Sumeria along with the Imbunche and the primeval beasts of Tiamat, all of which were wiped out by the Flood.
With the advent of geological mapping in the early 19th century, it became increasingly obvious that many of the fossils associated with the "secondary" (sedimentary) rock were neither those of giant humans nor of any extant animals. These included large animals such as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs and the various giant mammals found when excavating the Catacombs of Paris. Such creatures were also believed to have existed even before Adam and Eve set foot on the planet when they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden alongside their counterparts.