Scienceenvironment
Soil evidence suggests early farming in Maya region 6,000 years ago
A groundbreaking study conducted in tropical Belize indicates that agriculture in the Maya-speaking region began roughly 6,000 years ago. Co-led by the University of New Mexico and published in Communications Earth & Environment, the research pushes back the timeline of organized food production in the area by millennia. The findings challenge previous assumptions about when and how large-scale societal changes occurred in Mesoamerica. Soil analyses reveal that ancient populations were actively farming long before the establishment of the region's first large permanent villages.