Many beliefs teach that we came from a Golden Age and that we are not evolving but deteriorating.
Under the Ages of Man, Greece taught that we came from a golden age when man lived in peace, harmony, stability and prosperity. People did not have to work and the earth provided an abundance of food.
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line.
Even this was impious; for the common stock
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore
The Golden Age was first; when Man, yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted Reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear.
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast
They lived to an old age, but were young in appearance. Thereafter, each age man deteriorated just as the value of the metals did in each age, becoming violent, greedy and selfish.
Hinduism had a similar idea, the Yugas, the Krita Yuga being the Golden Age, the Kali Yuga being iron age.
In Norse Gullaidr means Golden.
The bible also references them “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue - an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. - Daniel 2: 31-35