Archaeologists using drones have discovered 4,000-year-old fishing canals built by the ancient Mayan predecessors

Archaeologists using drones and Google Earth images have discovered 4,000-year-old canals in Belize that were once used by the Ancient Mayans to catch freshwater fish.

“Aerial photographs played a critical role in identifying this really distinctive structure of zigzag linear channels,” study co-author Eleanor Harrison-Buck of the University of New Hampshire said of the discovery, which predates Christopher Columbus.

The fishing canals, built around 2000 BC, continued to be used by their Mayan descendants until around 200 AD.

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Altar Q, which depicts the 16 kings in the dynastic succession of the city, can be seen inside the archaeological site of Copán, in Copán Ruinas, Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, file)

“This is the earliest large-scale archaic fishing activity recorded in ancient Mesoamerica,” the study authors wrote in Science Advances, adding that “such landscape-scale intensification may have been a response to long-term climatic disturbances recorded between 2200 and 2200.” 1900 BC.”

According to study co-author Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont, the canals likely included “serrated spear points” found nearby that could have been used to catch fish with spears.

In 2019, researchers are excavating sediments that will be sequenced to help them date evidence of a large-scale pre-Columbian fishery in Belize. (Belize River East Coast Archeology Project via AP)

The research team believes that the spear tips were tied to sticks along the canals.

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“It’s very interesting to see such large-scale changes in the landscape so early on – it shows that people were already building something,” University of Pittsburgh archaeologist Claire Ebert told The Associated Press of the semi-nomadic people who built the canals. Ebert was not involved in the study.

Stela M and the Hieroglyphic Staircase are visible at the Copan archaeological site, Copan Ruinas, Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, file)

Ebert added that the Mayan civilization is better studied by archaeologists because of its many ruins, such as Chichen Itza.

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