Eu acredito que você está pensando em "Ressurreição" aka "The Monster", um conto famoso por A. E. van Vogt que também foi a resposta para esta velha pergunta e este e esta e este e < um href="https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19976/a-short-story-from-1968-1971-sobre-alien-archeologistas-re-animando-umano-remain"> este ; publicado pela primeira vez em Astounding Science Fiction , agosto de 1948 , disponível no Arquivo da Internet . No entanto, os alienígenas de van Vogt não são exatamente "antropólogos", eles estão procurando planetas para colonizar. E eles não visitam terras diferentes; eles visitam uma terra, no futuro distante, e revivem um terrestre morto após o outro, em ordem cronológica, começando com uma múmia egípcia. Seu objetivo é descobrir o que causou a extinção em massa da vida na Terra, antes de mover seu próprio povo.
Uma raça alienígena (antropólogos) visita a Terra e encontra toda a vida extinta. Eles encontram uma maneira de recriar a vida até certo ponto na linha do tempo anterior.
"Do you think we ought to use our method of reviving the long dead?"
Youl was thoughtful. "I have been asking questions of the various people who have landed, and there is something wrong here. This planet has no surviving life, not even insect life. We'll have to find out what happened before we risk any colonization."
À medida que movem o ponto de recreação cada vez mais perto dos dias atuais, eles encontram humanos mais avançados. Os humanos iniciais estão confusos,
A man blinked, and opened his eyes.
"It is true, then," he said aloud, and the words were translated into the Ganae tongue as he spoke them. "Death is merely an opening into another life—but where are my attendants?" At the end, his voice took on a complaining tone.
He sat up, and climbed out of the case, which had automatically opened as he came to life. He saw his captors. He froze, but only for a moment. He had a pride and a very special arrogant courage, which served him now. Reluctantly, he sank to his knees and made obeisance, but doubt must have been strong in him. "Am I in the presence of the gods of Egyptus?" He climbed to his feet. "What nonsense is this? I do not bow to nameless demons."
os mais recentes são capazes de entender a situação com mais facilidade
The third man sat up, and looked at them thoughtfully. "From the stars?" he said finally. "Have you a system, or was it blind chance?"
The Ganae councilors in that domed room stirred uneasily in their curved chairs. Enash caught Yoal's eye on him. The shock in the historian's eyes alarmed the meteorologist. He thought: "The two-legged one's adjustment to a new situation, his grasp of realities, was unnormally rapid. No Ganae could have equalled the swiftness of his reaction."
e o último / mais recente compreende toda a situação em um piscar de olhos e desaparece instantaneamente (daí saindo do controle dos alienígenas).
Captain Gorsid waved at the biologist, "Proceed," he said, "with the revival."
To Enash, he said, "Do we dare return to Gana, and recommend mass migrations—and then admit that we did not actually complete our investigations here? It's impossible, my friend."
It was the old argument, but reluctantly now Enash admitted there was something to be said for that point of view. He forgot that, for the fourth man was stirring.
The man sat up and vanished.
There was a blank, startled, horrified silence. Then Captain Gorsid said harshly, "He can't get out of there. We know that. He's in there somewhere."
All around Enash, the Ganae were out of their chairs, peering into the energy shell. The guards stood with ray guns held limply in their suckers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the protective screen technicians beckon to Veed, who went over. He came back grim. "I'm told the needles jumped ten points when he first disappeared. That's on the nucleonic level."
"By ancient Ganae!" Shuri whispered. "We've run into what we've always feared."