
Satellite image showing canals that were part of an ancient fishery and nearby Mayan ruins
Google Earth
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient fishing net built by hunter-gatherers around 4,000 years ago in Belize.
The system of earthen canals exceeds 640 kilometers in length and dates back to the Archaic Era, a few centuries later before the emergence of the Mayan civilization. It is the oldest large-scale fishing facility ever recorded in Central America.
“We all expected it to date back to a time of sedentary Mayan civilization,” he says Eleanor Harrison-Buck…