The discovery of a complex fish trap network dating back 4,000 years illustrates how the Maya developed into a civilization in Central America, particularly in what is now southern Mexico.
A series of ancient fish trap facilities created by the direct ancestors of the Maya have been uncovered in Belize. These facilities were capable of catching enough fish to sustain 15,000 people annually. They include a network of canals and ponds that directed fish into areas that could be easily harvested.
The hunter-gatherer ancestors of the Maya constructed these fishing facilities to help provide food during periods of drought. An aerial view of (A) a contemporary fishing practice in Zambia; (B) an ancient fishing site in Bolivia’s Amazon; and (C) an ancient fishing site in western Belize. (Image: Captured by Harrison-Buck et al. from Google Earth).
Scientists published this information in a recently released study in the journal Science Advances. They noted that these hunter-gatherers built these complex networks around 4,000 years ago, during the Archaic period, before large-scale agriculture was practiced in the region.
“This is the earliest recorded large-scale ancient fish trapping facility in ancient Central America“, the research team stated in their paper. The success of these hunter-gatherers seems to have contributed to the formation of the Maya, a civilization that later dominated the lowland Maya region of Central America and southern Mexico.
These fish trap facilities likely encouraged people to develop permanent settlements and later cities. “It appears that the canals allowed for annual fish harvesting and social gatherings, which would encourage people to return to this area and congregate for longer periods of time,” said Marieka Brouwer Burg, the study’s co-author and an anthropology professor at the University of Vermont.
Brouwer Burg added: “Such significant investments in the landscape may ultimately lead to the development of a complex society characteristic of pre-Columbian Maya civilization, which emerged in this region around 1200 BCE.”
At the time these fish trap facilities were constructed, the region was experiencing drought, and people may have been facing food shortages, the research team wrote in their study. This may have encouraged community efforts to build facilities to ensure a stable food supply.
The research team employed satellite imagery and aerial photos captured by drones to identify the canals and ponds. They also conducted excavations and radiocarbon dating of organic sediments and charcoal to determine when the fish trap facilities were built.
