Researchers Identify 168 New Nazca Lines in Peru
This makes over a thousand that we know of
Hiya!
If you’ve read much of my writing, you’ve probably noticed that ancient human history is a favorite topic of mine. I just love learning about how people lived thousands and hundreds of thousands of years ago. We can’t know everything about them. We may not even ever know much about them all because only remnants of them remain — long since buried beneath our feet. Just imagine what lies far below the place you’re currently reading this.
I want to know their perspectives, beliefs, and wisdom and understand their thinking behind creating the things we’ve found. Like today’s topic, the infamous geoglyphs known as the Nazca Lines in Peru. Scientists have known about them for a while, but archeologists recently discovered over a hundred more!
Nazca Lines
Geoglyphs are simple ancient designs, like pictographs, except instead of being drawn on cave walls, geoglyphs are created using the planet’s terrain. They are often challenging to date for the same reason, but they’ve been discovered worldwide, and the artifacts found in the areas are thousands of years old.
The Nazca Lines are easily the most famous grouping of geoglyphs and were created by and named after the pre-Hispanic Nazca civilization — one of the most sophisticated ancient Peruvian cultures. Based on current evidence, the Nazca culture etched their geoglyphs across the desert plains of the basin river of Rio Grande de Nazca between 400 BCE and 650 CE.
For over a thousand years, the Nazca drew over a thousand geoglyphs (that we know of) that sprawl across 75,358.47 hectares (186,214.8 acres). The images portray large-scale geometric shapes and lines, plants and animals like insects, birds, and flowers, and mysterious, fantastical human-like figures. These and other geoglyphs are protected UNESCO heritage sites. UNESCO states:
“[The Nazca Lines] are the most outstanding group of geoglyphs anywhere in the world and are unmatched in their extent, magnitude, quantity, size, diversity and ancient tradition.”
Understandably, the Nazca Lines have drawn the interest of experts across many fields since their discovery in 1926. That was when Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe spotted some while walking around the area. But it wasn’t until the 1930s, when air traffic increased, that they became more well-known, ultimately leading to a steady stream of tourists.
Because news of them spread thanks to people seeing the Nazca Lines from airplanes, and considering their size and locations, it’s rumored the glyphs can only be seen from above. While they may be easiest to see from the sky, research from 2007 evaluated 1,500 Nazca Lines and found "each and every geoglyph" is visible from the ground.
How The Nazca Lines are Made
I grew up surrounded by trees and mountains in the Pacific Northwest, which isn’t the ideal terrain for geoglyphs like the Nazca Lines. But the Nazca plains are the perfect environment for their creation. The area is one of the driest places in the world and has flat, stony ground, minimizing the wind at ground level.
Due to centuries of sun exposure, the rocks on the ground’s surface are a dark patina — the thin layer of dark greenish coloring bronze and similar metals turn when oxidized. However, beneath the crust of darker stones lies a light-colored soil that sharply contrasts with the dark stones above it.
So, the Nazca made the geoglyphs by removing the darker stones on the surface to reveal the lighter soil underneath. And since the terrain is flat, they have remained for centuries with little wind erosion. Though, that’s not the only method the Nazca used to create the geoglyphs.
Researchers explain in the study I’ll tell you about next that geoglyphs fall into three main categories — linear, geometric, and figurative. The figurative grouping, which includes images of tools, plants, animals, and humans, is further divided into “line-type” and “relief-type” based on the method used to create them.
Line types used the abovementioned method by “drawing” white lines to contrast the dark crust. Meanwhile, relief types used a mixture of light soil and dark stones to create the geoglyphs.
New Research
Now we can add another 168 geoglyphs to the Nazca Lines tally because that’s how many a research group led by Professor Masato Sakai at Yamagata University and Peruvian archaeologist Jorge Olano discovered in the Aja region near the city of Nazca, Peru.
Their findings were published in The Journal of Archaeological Science in June 2023, but the team searched the area for almost a decade before finally hitting the jackpot between June 2019 and February 2020. That’s when they spotted 168 new geoglyphs in the aerial images their drones captured while flying over 280 square miles.
Upon further investigation, the researchers dated the geoglyphs — which include images of birds, orca whales, cats, humans, and camelids, which were relatives of today’s camels — to being from between 100 BC and 300 CE.
In addition to the excitement of finding such an abundance of new geoglyphs, Sakai and Olano’s discoveries have a couple of curiosities about them. To start, as I mentioned before, most known Nazca Lines were made by removing the dark stony crust to reveal the light soil beneath, also called line-type, but some of the new ones were created, at least in part, by piling stones on top of each other, in the relief-type style.
In a press release by Yamagata University, the researchers state that only five of the newly discovered geoglyphs are line types, while the other 163 are relief types.
All of the Nazca Lines vary in size, but one of the longest straight lines is over 12 miles (20 km) long, and the total combined length of the Nazca Lines is estimated to be over 800 miles (1,300 km). Meanwhile, most of the newly discovered relief-type geoglyphs are smaller, at only around eight feet (10 meters) in diameter, and were found along ancient trails.
In the Future
Sakai and Olano’s discovery is exciting because of the sheer number of Nazca geoglyphs they found, but 168 is nothing compared to the over 1,000 already discovered over the last few decades.
Still, Sakai and Olano have more plans than simply adding their new collection to the pile. They’re helping to develop artificial intelligence to analyze drone aerial images and spot geoglyphs like the Nazca Lines. The team didn’t use AI to detect any of the 168 new geoglyphs in their research, but they’re using their images to “teach” an AI system to identify geoglyphs as the researchers continue searching for more.
Beyond tech, the team has worked with local authorities to conserve the Nazca Lines with an archaeological park in the Aja region where many geoglyphs are concentrated.
Yamagata University first discovered 41 geoglyphs in the Aja area in 2014 and 2015, and in collaboration with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, they created the archaeological park in 2017 to protect them. Amazingly, of the new batch of geoglyphs, the team discovered 36 are located in the same area as the park. Making a new total of 77 geoglyphs within the archaeological park grounds.
Perspective Shift
Conspiracy theorists love to say that the Nazcan people created the geoglyphs as signals to aliens or as aerial maps for UFOs. The idea that the glyphs can only be seen from the sky helps perpetuate the hypothesis, yet as that 2007 study I mentioned above shows, there’s no truth to the myth.
Most scientists seem to agree that the Nazcan people created them as messages or prayers to their gods (not aliens) for things like rain and fertility. I can get on board with that idea, but I can think of at least one reason they may have created the Nazca Lines without gods or aliens in the picture. Hear me out.
What if… a single, bored, artistic individual did the very first geoglyphs? What if they grew tired of drawing on rocks or wood, then stared at Peru’s sprawling flat terrain and saw a canvas? Similar to other ancient cultures who saw cave walls as the same. Perhaps their community joined in, and the concept spread, and their meaning and purpose adapted to the societies that made them. Who knows, maybe it’s not just one correct answer but many.
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Fascinating, Katrina.