New research, conducted in part at Texas State University, has discovered the earliest large-scale pre-Columbian fish-trapping facility recorded in ancient Mesoamerica.
The fisheries canals, located in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest inland wetland in Belize, was dated by the research team to 2000-1900 BCE, predating similar fisheries in the Amazon by a thousand years. The facility continued to be used by the Maya descendants of the original builders for centuries thereafter.
Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, served as lead author on the paper. Samantha M. Krause, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at TXST, served as coauthor. The team’s research, “Late Archaic large-scale fisheries in the wetlands of the pre-Columbian Maya Lowlands,” is published in the journal Science Advances.
“Wetlands have always been a critical ecosystem for humans across the globe,” Krause said. “Knowing how to manage wetland resources responsibly is essential for the continued resilience of these ecosystems both in the past and today. The Archaic hunter-gatherer-fishers knew how to protect their resources and use them in a way that could sustain these habitats, not exhaust them, which explains their long-lasting occupation in this area.”
Using drones and satellite imagery, the research team identified a vast network of linear earthen channels or weirs designed to divert annual flood waters into source ponds for fish trapping. Excavated sediments indicate these structures were constructed contemporaneously with a long-term drought that impacted Mesoamerica between 2200-1900 BCE.
Pollen data from excavations suggest that hunter-gatherer-fisher groups responded to drought conditions by intensifying the fish trapping as their primary food source, perhaps supplemented by other aquatic food sources and drought-resistant species like amaranth that grow well in clay-rich, sandy soils characteristic of Belize’s wetland-lagoon environments. Increased amounts of charcoal particles in the excavations also suggest the use of controlled fire burns. These burns would have encouraged the annual regrowth of amaranth and other valuable plant species. The controlled burns would have also cleared away undergrowth to provide open access to fish canals and ponds as well as fertilizing the fish-trapping facilities.
The research team suggests that the environmental and social conditions likely encouraged increasingly larger social gatherings and communal feasting in the area, giving rise to semi-permanent and later permanent settlements. The mass harvesting of fish in the wetland-lagoonal environments served as a dependable, abundant food source capable of supporting sizeable populations and these fisheries, rather than maize-based agriculture, likely served as the catalyst for the future emergence of Maya population centers such as Chau Hiix, Lamanai, and Nohmul in northern Belize, and Itzamkanac and Aguada Fénix in Campeche and Tabasco, Mexico.
This research was funded by a grant from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Additional support was provided by a collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation. The Belize Institute of Archaeology provided an archaeological permit, granting permission to excavate in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. The Crooked Tree Village Council welcomed the research team and permitted it to map and excavate in the wetlands around their community.