In the
novella "
At the Mountains of Madness" by
H.P. Lovecraft, a race of
alien beings who, millions of years ago, built a vast
civilization somewhere on the continent of
Antarctica. They were eventually destroyed by their artificially-created servants the
Shoggoths.
As a race they are distinct from the Great Old Ones, that assortment of extraterrestrial menaces that includes Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.