You know its possible the Mayans encountered a transient Lorentzian wormhole with its apertures located in the same spot on Earth somewhere between 2000 BC and 2012 AD.
They peeked through and saw their cities in 2012 abandoned and overgrown with jungle and assumed it was all over in 2012.
Or scarier they peeked though the event horizon and saw New York or LA and thought the lack of human sacrifices and soccer with human heads meant the end of it all...
... ok they probably didn't see a glimpse of LA...
That reminds me of a passage in the
book I'm reading...
"[you're in] the Best Western Media Center Inn and Suites, in Burbank."
"Is that a planet? What system is it in?"
"You're on
Earth, you moron."
"Was there an apocalypse?"