Much like Isaac Newton imagined when he gave his famous “shoulders of giants” quote, our modern civilizations owe a great deal to those which came before us. While examples like the Sumerians or Egyptians are deeply ingrained in nearly everyone’s minds, there are a number of other civilizations which have been largely forgotten. Here are 10 of them.
正如艾萨克·牛顿在提出其“巨人的肩膀”名言时所设想的一样，我们的现代文明也从先前的诸文明中获益良多。虽然诸如苏美尔或者埃及文明的例子已经深入人心，但仍有为数不少的文明基本上是被忘却了的。这里列举10个如下。

Photo credit: Bhushan Kotakar
图片引自： Bhushan Kotakar
10、Hattian Civilization
赫蒂文明

The Hattians were a civilization which inhabited the area of present-day Anatolia, Turkey from the 26th century to around the 18th century B.C. Believed to be the earliest urban settlers of the area, their existence can be traced to 24th-century Akkadian cuneiform tablets. Most archaeologists believe that they were indigenous to the area preceding the more famous Hittite civilization, which arrived in the 23rd century B.C. The two cultures slowly merged together, with the Hittites adopting a variety of Hatti religious beliefs and practices. Many of the largest Hittite settlements, such as Alaca Hoyuk and Hattusa, are believed to have originally been Hattian.
赫蒂文明位于今土耳其安纳托利亚地区，存在于公元前26世纪至约18世纪。他们是该地区最早的城市居民，其存在的证据可追溯至公元前24世纪的阿卡德楔形文字石碑中。大多数考古学家认为，赫蒂人比更为闻名的赫梯人更早存在于这一地区，后者于公元前23世纪来到这里。随着赫蒂人采纳了许多来自赫梯的宗教信仰和实践习惯，两大文明慢慢地融合在了一起。赫梯人的许多大型定居点，诸如阿拉卡·郝予克（Alaca Hoyuk）以及哈兹萨（Hattusa），确信最初曾是赫蒂人的。

While they had their own spoken language, no evidence of a written form of the Hatti language has ever been found. It’s likely that they were multilingual, perhaps to facilitate trade with their Assyrian partners. In fact, most of what we know about the Hattians comes from the widespread adoption of their culture by the Hittites. Their population probably existed as a majority for decades—if not centuries—while they were under the aristocratic rule of the Hittites, before they eventually faded away into obscurity.
虽然他们有自己的口头语言，但并未发现过有关其文字语言的证据。他们有可能是多语言的，或许是为了促进与其亚述（Assyrian）伙伴们之间的贸易往来。事实上，我们对赫蒂人的所知大部分来自于赫梯人对其文化的广泛采用。赫蒂的人口数量或许曾在几十年中占据多数——如果没到上百年的话——然而却是在赫梯贵族们的统治之下，直至最终在历史的长河中晦暗下去。 来源:可可英语 //m.moreplr.com/read/201407/312869.shtml