(though this series seems to expand on imagined details, some maybe beyond this 1950 book by George R Stewart ... which didn't deal with corpses, IIRC.)
Serendipity: much action is set in Berkeley Hills, so there are believable vignettes of the mode of decay of the local bridges and other tie-ins.
My mother had scored a paperback copy, annotated on the cover, for me. Eerie to be in precise locale, poignant to find her incisive notes -- years later. **** IMO.

If not the earliest version of Earth sans its most dangerous and destructive Terraformer, it may be the first which sold to others than readers exclusively of SciFi/Fantasy tales.

Pity.. no History Channel por moi, though will see about looking in, next door. Thanks for the agenda links!