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A huge network of 4000-year-old canals spanning 16 square miles has been discovered in Belize, revealing new evidence about life before Maya civilisation.
A bird’s-eye-view of the Yucatán Peninsula revealed a criss cross network of human-made canals and ponds, which experts predict could once have caught enough fish to feed 15,000 people for a year.
If true, it supports evidence that the civilisation’s diet relied heavily on fish, rather than maize as previously thought.
Anthropologist Eleanor Harrison-Buck from the University of New Hampshire said: “For Mesoamerica in general, we tend to regard agricultural production as the engine of civilisation, but this study tells us that it wasn’t just agriculture — it was also potential mass harvesting of aquatic species.”
Experts suggest the canals paired with holding ponds were used as giant fish catchers for species such as catfish from about 2000 BCE until 200 CE.
Barbed spearheads discovered nearby may have been tied to sticks and used to spear fish, according to co-author of the study, Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont.
Belize is home to early Mayan settlements, however it’s predicted the fish traps were built at least 700 years before the civilisation’s rise by Late Archaic hunter-gatherer-fisher groups, possibly to combat consequences of drought.
It’s predicted they were used for about 1000 years, crossing over with when the Maya began to settle in permanent farming villages, a different way of life to the semi-nomadic people of the Yucatán plain.
Experts believe it’s part of the first large-scale prehistoric fish-trapping facility recorded in Central America.
Harrison-Buck added: “The early dates for the canals surprised us initially because we all assumed these massive constructions were built by the ancient Maya living in the nearby city centres.
“However, after running numerous radiocarbon dates, it became clear they were built much earlier.”
Like other researchers in the Yucatán, Harrison-Buck’s team has started using aerial surveys to explore dense vegetation and inaccessible areas.
They are focusing on the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary (CTWS), which has hosted nearly 10,000 years of continuous human occupation, along with several other locations in the Maya Lowlands, including the New River, Rio Hondo and the Candelaria.
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