What came first, the atheist or the theist?

[Spencer]

I don't see anything circular about it. Before the concept of god(s), no one believed in god(s). That makes sense. Those people were atheists. They didn't have that word yet, but they were, indeed, 'without belief in gods', which is what atheist means.

Its circular because I say one thing, you say another. Round and round we go.

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Lets pretend for a moment that religion never existed, no one ever "believed" in a god or gods, never mentioned it or brought it up, didn't use them to explain the unknown none of that, everyone had complete understand of evolution and exactly how the earth and universe operated and had perfectly logical explanations for everything.

Would atheism exist?

Yes, but only weak/negative/soft/implicit/passive/agnostic atheism. That's the lack of belief type which does not actively state there is no god, but only has a lack of belief. There would definitely need to be a concept of god though, before anyone could be a strong/positive/hard/explicit/active/gnostic atheist.

Weak = lack of belief only, without it mattering whether or not the concept exists yet.
Strong = active disbelief, and the god concept needs to exist first in order to reject it.

Both are considered atheism.

I disagree. With no belief in a higher power there would be no need for theism, rendering atheism obsolete. Would the terms even exist in our language today if my example above were true?

Theism created Atheism.