Archaeologists, with the help of drones and Google Earth imagery, have discovered 4,000-year-old canals in Belize that were once used by the predecessors of the ancient Mayans to catch freshwater fish.
“The aerial imagery was crucial to identify this really distinctive pattern of zigzag linear canals” study co-author Eleanor Harrison-Buck of the University of New Hampshire said of the pre-Christopher Columbus discovery.
The fish-trapping canals, built around 2000 BCE, continued to be used by their Mayan descendants until around 200 CE.
SCIENTISTS STUDY ‘VERY RARE’ FROZEN REMAINS OF 35,000-YEAR-OLD SABER-TOOTHED CUB
Altar Q that depicts 16 kings in the dynastic succession of the city is seen inside the archeological site of Copan, in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
“This is the earliest large-scale Archaic fish-trapping facility recorded in ancient Mesoamerica,” the study authors wrote in Science Advances, adding that “such landscape-scale…
