I would say without life, there is no time.
This is something I ponder quite a bit. In the reality I know, time is a unit of measurement, created by a limited creature who knows beginning and end, in a limitless universe that time has no construct with.
Two such things shouldn't go together in my mind.
This I think is more a philosophical question. I don't think man really has the ability to really know the answer to this.
It's kind of hard to even construct such an experiment or controlled setting to test such a theory, because an observer must be present, and to remove the observer is what gives this theory merit. It's a paradox of sorts.
Nice thought provoking question. I hope my answer makes sense.