Late Archaic large-scale fisheries in the wetlands of the pre-Columbian Maya Lowlands

On the basis of the data presented here, we conclude that the wetland features our team has investigated in the CTWS were initially constructed by Late Archaic hunter-gatherer-fisher groups and continued to be used by the Formative Maya. They were designed to channel annual flood waters into source ponds for fish trapping.

The mass harvesting of fish in these wetland-lagoonal environments served as a primary food source capable of supporting sizeable populations and semipermanent residence in the Late Archaic and ultimately fully sedentary pre-Columbian Maya populations by Formative times.