The lack of artifacts of said civilizations argues they did not exist.
Lack of artifacts does not prove there were none. It just proves there are none to be found.
Citizen, have a look at the artifacts left by the Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Meso-American civilizations. Consider that we find artifacts left by our ancestors from two million years ago. But no one has presented us with artifacts and evidence of an advanced civilization dating past ten thousand years ago.
We find stone implements from 2 million years ago. The Roman and earlier artifacts are uncommon (some are rare) and look around you. How much of our modern artifacts will be around in 2,000 years? Not too many. The lack of artifacts only shows that none have been found that can be traced to an older civilization. The epic of Gilgamesh and other religious tracts all speak of a great flood and that could only have happened 5,000 years before the beginning of modern civilization as we know it. That means there was a society around long enough to develop BEFORE the flood to develop a primordial memory.