I've been posting through reading bad scifi as of late if you follow me. Recently I stumbled across some pre-ancient aliens TV show ancient aliens scifi which references Chariots of the Gods from Erich von Däniken sympathetically. It is weirdly anti-evolved intelligence as well. Which has me thinking if "uplift" into sapience as a scifi trope is just intricately connected with colonialism and the ancient aliens trope of "anything old made by non-white people required aliens". I haven't read any scifi featuring the uplift trope until now and I am thinking that the co-occurence of ancient aliens isn't a cultural coincidence.