They found 303 Nazca lines, almost the same as the known ones

The enigmatic Nazca Lines They constitute one of the main archaeological testimonies of pre-Hispanic Peru. Spread across an immense desert south of Lima, fifty kilometers inland, these striking geometric and figurative representations of animals, peoplefantastic beings or stylized vegetables, which began to be made during the initial Nazca period (between 100 BC and 50 AD), constitute a fascinating window to approach the ancient cultures of the region. However, their meaning continues to be debated among researchers, who have associated them with astronomical processes, agricultural activities, communication routes or simple artistic expressions.

THE geoglyphs They have survived for centuries thanks to their location in an area that has not been affected by floods and has not been exploited for cultivation. Since the 1940s, when the first surveys began using aerial photographs, and until today, a total of 430 figurative lines have been documented, which are part of UNESCO’s world heritage. But a new survey based on remote sensing means, and with the help of artificial intelligence, has made it possible to identify in six months 303 new figurative geoglyphsalmost doubling the number of digits known so far.

The results of the work carried out by Masato Sakairesearcher at Yamagata University (Japan), and published this Monday in the journal PNASnot only can they “revolutionize” research new Nazca Lines, but they also shed light on their mysterious meaning: they could have been a way of marking roads and trails.

The complexity of the shapes of the geoglyphs made a typological classification necessary two large groups: geometric and figurativeThe latter, which represent humanoids, animals (birds, monkeys, foxes, spiders, lizards, orcas, whales or felines) are divided into two styles: linear typelarger and created by removing the black stones from the top to reveal the white earth underneath; and the type of reliefwhich combine several dimensions to form a figure.

A global study to know the true dimension of these creations of the Nazca civilization – which lasted until the 15th century – had been impossible because the region in which they are located and its surroundings cover more than 629 square kilometers. To overcome this obstacle, Sakai and his team applied artificial intelligence tools to aerial images of the area in order to increase the number of discoveries. Not only did the scientists discover 303 new figurative geoglyphs, but the system allowed them to document more relief-type figures, which are smaller and therefore difficult to describe. In addition, 42 other geometric shapes were found.

Archaeologists then studied the shape, location and possible use of the geoglyphs. Among those of the relief type, they concluded that 81.6% represented domestic animals or humanswhile 61.4% of the rays corresponded to wild animals. The figures that make up the first of the subgroups were once found nearby, visible to the naked eye – 43 meters on average – from the paths opened in the pampa or Nazca plateau, accessible only to a handful of individuals. As for the other subgroup, each motif is located on average 34 meters away within a complex network, which suggests that they were probably used at the community level for ritual activities.

“Our improved report on relief-type figurative geoglyphs shows that they differ from linear-type geoglyphs in more than just their style and size,” the researchers say in the paper. “They also differ in the patterns they represent, their distribution, and their relationship to the meandering trail network. Taken together, this makes a compelling case for the nature and different objectives of the two geoglyphs“The relief type reveals information about human activities of individuals or small groups and the linear types would have been built and used by the community as a whole for ceremonial purposes.”