Archaeologists digging in the outback of China made a discovery several years ago that had historical and culinary significance.

They found a noodle thought to be 4,000 years old.

Back in college, I prepared something out of a Ramen package that seemed not a day younger.

These excavators did the full radiocarbon treatment on the strands, scientifically dating them to the Neolithic Age. Pride seemed at stake.

Next to fire and Facebook, the noodle stands as one of the world's great creations. Everybody wants in on that invention.

This comes up whenever someone credits the Italians as architects of noodlery.

Guess again, say the Chinese, claiming they poured pasta into a colander while the Etruscans still noshed on olives and goat meat.

For some reason, this matters. Civilizations want credit for their cultural breakthroughs, the Chinese and Italians with their cuisine and the Mayans with their calendar.

Actually, no Mayans move among us, let alone boast in our presence.

No one goes to a social event and meets someone named Ahau.

"Ahau, that's an interesting name," you say. "Is it Brazilian? Swedish?"

The reply comes, "No, it's Mayan."

Doesn't happen.

The Mayan people were supposed to be aces with astronomy and math. In my one-time visit to Mayan ruins, I can only attest they knew how to settle in warm climates.

From what I could tell, the Mayans chose these locales because they couldn't homestead on the sun. That they didn't take credit for the invention of rum drinks is the real mystery.

But the Mayans are getting some publicity these days because the calendar they developed ends in 2012. Some people suggest that portends the world's end.

See, folks don't jump to the conclusion that some poor functionary in the Mayan calendar department left work one day and got mauled by a pack of rabid howler monkeys. That his work ended at 2012 and his superiors, eager to downsize, said, "Good enough."

No, people see this and expect the apocalypse.

Next weekend, a big-budget movie called "2012" opens with an end-of-all-life theme. Its trailer features mayhem that can only be had with tidal waves, building collapses, asteroid strikes and a Woody Harrelson line reading.

The film's director, Roland Emmerich, earlier made the alien invasion movie "Independence Day" and the climate change thriller "The Day After Tomorrow." Clearly, he has something against Earth.

That the German-born director puts so much faith in Mayans speaks more to profit than prophesy. In Hollywood, disaster is good for business.

Trouble is, forecasts of real-world cataclysm prove useful only if they come to pass, and that appears a rather hollow prize.

True, it gives you a chance to run the credit card to its limit, to leave traffic violations unpaid, to dance foolishly at weddings without the chance of YouTube infamy beyond three years from now.

(With the dancing thing, though, it would be a brutal three years.)

Let it be said, however, that people hereabouts would never again have to endure that levy campaign with its puzzling sunset clause. They would never have to pay off those federal requirements on local sewers.

As any Mayan will tell you, the apocalypse can have its bright side.

Ken Newton's column runs on Sunday and Tuesday.