Evolution and absurdism

The rabbi asked me:
Evolution has created millions of years of humans living full lives. In contrast, the Torah was only given about 3,000 years ago.
 
My understanding of this is that God created His world naturally, and that’s how it simply works.
The question is, doesn’t this make the lives of all the people who lived before receiving the Torah somewhat redundant?
They didn’t even have anything to be rewarded for, let alone any meaning or even belief (they weren’t smart enough to believe).
Can this absurdity really be said about this human life (technically, there is more time without Torah in the world than there is time with Torah in the world)?
Again, this makes their lives redundant from a Jewish perspective… and it’s very easy to say that they were spiritually meaningless, but what if it were us?
 
Thank you very much!