Ancient Mayan fish-trapping canals discovered by archaeologists using drones

Using drones and Google Earth imagery, archaeologists have uncovered 4,000-year-old canals in Belize that were utilized by the ancestors of the ancient Mayans to capture freshwater fish.

Eleanor Harrison-Buck of the University of New Hampshire stated that the aerial imagery was essential to identify the unique zigzag pattern of linear canals in the pre-Christopher Columbus discovery.

The Mayan descendants utilized the fish-trapping canals constructed approximately 2000 BCE until about 200 CE.

"The earliest large-scale fish-trapping facility in ancient Mesoamerica was discovered by study authors, who suggest that this landscape-scale intensification may have been a response to long-term climate disturbance between 2200 and 1900 BCE."

Barbed spearpoints were likely used to spear fish in the canals, according to study co-author Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont.

The research team believes that sticks were used to secure the spearpoints along the canals.

The construction of large-scale landscape modifications by semi-nomadic people, as seen in the canals, is fascinating, according to University of Pittsburgh archaeologist Claire Ebert, who spoke to the Associated Press. Ebert was not part of the study.

Archaeologists are better suited to study the Mayan civilization due to the abundance of ruins, such as Chichen Itza, according to Ebert.

The Mayans also developed complex systems of writing, mathematics and astronomy.