Prediluvian

When Noah in ark, with his ſons did embark, / Prediluvians, uplifted and pompous, / Deem’d his nautical ſcheme a fantaſtical dream, / And pronounc’d the projector non compos.

[…] for the British have in 1,500 years progressed from an initial stage that was probably inferior to that of the prediluvians, and any shipbuilding that they learned from earlier races was a hindrance, not a help.

With only two exceptions the prediluvians lived into their tenth century.