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Photo credit: Ji-Elle
图片引自： Ji-Elle
6、Nok Civilization
诺克文明
Named after the area in Nigeria in which artifacts of their culture were first discovered, the Nok civilization flourished during the first millennium B.C.before fading into obscurity in the second century A.D. Some theories posit that the overexploitation of natural resources played a large role in the population’s decline. Whatever the case, scholars believe that they played an important role in the development of other cultures in the area, such as the Yoruba and Benin peoples.
以该文化的手工制品首先发现之地，尼日利亚某地的名字命名。诺克文明在公元前的第一个千年里持续繁荣，在公元2世纪逐渐没落、消失。一些理论假定，对自然资源的过度利用是导致其人口衰减的一个重要原因。无论如何，学者们认为该文明对这一地区的其他文化，如约鲁巴（Yoruba）和贝宁（Benin）的发展，起到了重要的作用，
Perhaps the best-known examples of their artistic nature are the terra-cotta figures which have been found throughout the area. They were also the earliest known Africans to have smelted iron, though it’s believed that it was introduced to them through another culture, perhaps the Carthaginians. The reason for this assumption is that no evidence for copper smelting has ever been found, which was a precursor to an iron age in nearly every other civilization. Although they’re believed to be one of the earliest African civilizations, evidence of their existence has been slow to come to light because modern-day Nigeria is a notoriously difficult place to study.
在该地区普遍发现的赤土陶俑（terra-cotta figures），或许是其艺术本质最为著名的示例。他们也是非洲人中已知最早可以炼铁的民族，虽然据信这是经由另一文化，或许是迦太基人（Carthaginians）所传授的。这一假定的原因是并没有发现过有关炼铜的证据，而后者在几乎其他所有的文明里都是铁器时代的先导。虽然诺克被认为是非洲最早的文明，但是关于其存在证据的发现则是十分缓慢的，因为当今的尼日利亚是一个声名狼藉的，难以开展研究的地方。
