A team of Japanese, French, and American researchers used an artificial intelligence system to identify 303 geoglyphs on the Nazca Plateau. Some stand out for their gigantic sizes and eerie themes. Among the most striking are depictions of severed human heads and a huge whale with a knife.
Geoglyphs are geometric or figurative patterns drawn on the ground that are at least four meters long. Some are so large they can only be fully seen from the air.
A few words about the mysterious plateau.
Researchers discovered the geoglyphs on the Nazca Plateau as early as the 1940s. Since then, they have been considered some of the most iconic tourist attractions in South America. The oldest images are dated to 100 BC.
Numerous archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists who have studied these drawings have yet to reach a consensus on the purpose of these colossal ancient works of art.
Until the current discovery, scientists had identified 430 geoglyphs, mostly depicting people and animals. About fifty of them were large linear drawings created by removing soil. The remaining 380 were classified by researchers as small relief images made by placing stones on the ground. Because the images in this second group were small, they were harder to detect, and some of the stones weathered away over the centuries.
Scientists suspected that not all geoglyphs had been found. Detecting them using traditional archaeological methods is laborious and lengthy.
What researchers have learned
To expedite this process, the authors of the new study developed an AI program capable of identifying faded geoglyphs in aerial photographs of the plateau. The algorithm proved particularly adept at detecting faint traces of relief geoglyphs and helped researchers discover more than 300 previously unknown works of ancient art, the publication IFLScience reported.
In the paper, the team wrote, “the main motifs of the relief geoglyphs (mostly 9 meters long) were humans, livestock, and human sacrifices.” Meanwhile, 64 percent of the linear geoglyphs depicted wild animals. These large figures often stretched up to 90 meters.
When attempting to interpret the giant ancient drawings, the authors noticed that the linear motifs were predominantly located about 34 meters from the pilgrimage route leading to the pre-Hispanic temple of Kahuachi. The researchers suggested that the indigenous people used the enormous geoglyphs as ceremonial sites for rituals during the sacred journey.
By contrast, the relief geoglyphs were usually located along visible informal walking paths. The researchers suggested that these smaller works of art served as a way to exchange information between individuals or communities.
However, the role of the whale image remains unclear.
The results of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
