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A stunning discovery reveals how the Mayan civilization arose 4,000 years ago
Fishing facilities could encourage people to gather and build permanent settlements and, later, cities.
A huge number of ancient fishing structures created by the direct ancestors of the Mayans have been discovered in Belize.
These structures could catch enough fish to feed up to 15,000 people a year: they consisted of a network of canals and ponds that directed the fish to areas where they could be easily caught, Live Science writes.
Hunter-gatherers built these complex networks about 4,000 years ago, during the Archaic period, when people in the region had not yet practiced agriculture on a large scale, the scientists noted in a study published in the journal Science Advances.
“This is the earliest large-scale archaic fishing structure…
