Having to admit that we aren’t really the latest and greatest of societies or cultures is just too much for our egos to handle. Thus we dismiss any notion or information that doesn’t fit into our neatly organized paradigms and view points of history. I’m sorry Darwin, the straight line of evolutionary development of humanhood isn’t valid and neither was there a literal Adam and Eve. Allegorically, the Eden story works, but not literally.
We can deny all we want but there were greatly advanced societies before Rome, Greece, Babylon, and Egypt. There’s much evidence of at Atlantean and Lemurian cultures- too much to dismiss their existence. And who knows what others existed as well? One of the greatest proofs of such ancient cultures are MAPS!
Maps? 
There are more sophisticated maps of our earth that are thousands of years old than we can imagine. Maps such as the Piri Re that gives exact detail to the continent of Antartica- before there was ice, before we twentieth century homo sapiens had a clue as to what lay beneath the ice. It would have taken many, many exploratory teams, many visits, over many years to come up with the detail that the Piri Re map does.
Where did these people go? What happened to them?
Their demise might be a clue as to our survival.
Unfortunately, the more advanced a society, the easier it is to destroy that society. And the less that will remain. How quickly and how completely an atomic or hydrogen bomb could destroy New York City and what would be left for future generations to try and construct as to what became of those people? Every culture contains within it the seeds of it’s own destruction.
For how many centuries did we hold fast to the myths of Crete and Troy only to discover that they were facts as well as myths.
Of the many lost civilizations (of which we know few and little) I am sure there are clues, in plain sight; however, we have to be willing to lay down our egoic pride and begin to look anew. Who knows what we might find if we are open to things we don’t know and are willing to challenge what we think we know?
Keys to 2012 might be found somewhere back in lost civilizations.
