We explore a Peruvian artifact type that collectively can stretch for hundreds of meters. In this post, you will find the YouTube video exploring these geoglyphs, and a full video transcript (with relevant sources and links).

YouTube Video

YouTube Video Transcript

Here, you will find the complete transcript of the video in the previous section with hyperlinked references/citations.

Intro

When you think of a large artifact, what comes to mind?

Maybe a towering statue. Or a monumental building.

But what about something that stretches for hundreds of meters across a desert?

Hi! I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan, and I’m an archaeologist. In this video, we’re going to explore an artifact that has transformed the Peruvian landscape and still has us asking questions to this day.

Background

This is a geoglyph. They are large designs that are marked on the ground in various ways like arranging stones or removing parts of a surface. Often, you have to be high up in an elevated position to see its full form. So not your typical portable artifact.

This particular geoglyph is one of the many that are known as the Lines of Nasca and Pampas de Jumana, which are located in the Peruvian coastal plain. More specifically, they are located 400 km south of Lima, Peru in the desert plains of the basin river of Rio Grande de Nasca.

For a bit of background, ancient people in this region carved these dense concentrations of designs and overlapping lines over a millennium, so between 500 BCE until 500 CE. These geoglyphs stretch several kilometers in length. They were created by individuals living in the region who scratched lines onto the landscape’s surface, thus exposing the lighter bedrock material underneath.

Categories

The designs included images of animals, plants, and geometric figures. Researchers have put the designs into two categories of glyphs.

The first category includes representational figures. These are drawn in a schematic form and include animals, both real and fantastical, birds, insects, plants and flowers, trees, and other objects of daily life. A few, but not many, of the glyphs depict anthropomorphic figures, which have both animal and human characteristics.

The second category is linear and geometric designs. Generally, these contain straight lines that criss-cross in all directions, but some contain lines that radiate from a central spot or encircle the design. Geometric figures include triangles, spirals, rectangles, and wavy lines. A subset of this category includes what’s called “tracks.” These may have been laid out to accommodate large numbers of people, but more on that soon.

The Nasca and Pampas lines were first systematically studied in 1926 by Peruvian archaeologist Manuel Toribio Mejía Xesspe. The rise of aviation in the 1930s helped to make these archaeological features better known to the public as planes flew above them, making them more visible than on the ground. More recently, a Japanese team from the Institute of Nasca at Yamagata University, has used AI technology to identify 303 additional geoglyphs that depict “parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales, and even severed heads.” Currently, there are over 700 known geoglyphs in this region.

The Spider

This example of a Nasca and Pampas geoglyph is known as the Spider, or la Araña, in Spanish. Located in the vicinity of the Hummingbird and Condor, two other well known Nasca geoglyphs, the Spider is approximately 150ft (~45m) in length. Although it’s not one of the largest geoglyphs, the Spider showcases some interesting design features, like its narrow and shallow legs. Spiders are common to both Peru and the Andean Mountains and this figure has been theorized to represent “rain and abundance of water” in the desert.

Explanations

Scholars have used a combination of archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology to try to explain why ancient people created these geoglyphs.

For example, past scholars argued that these lines had ritual astronomical functions. They proposed that they acted as markers and guides to point to celestial bodies rising on the horizon, or by representing constellations. More recent theories suggest they were used for agricultural and ecological purposes. Some theories consider both ritual and the environment. So rather than pointing to something, these lines could indicate areas on the ground where people met to enact rituals to procure water.

There is no single, definitive theory to explain these impressive geoglyphs, but they definitely transformed the landscape and we’re still learning more about them.

Outro

This video is part of our Artifact of the Day series, where we take a quick look at one intriguing object from the past. If you’re interested in watching another artifact of the day video, check out the video here.

Credits

Brooke Norton: Series Lead, Co-Producer, Researcher, Scriptwriter

Noor Hanania: Lead Video Editor, Peer Reviewer, Logo Designer

Anya Gruber: Peer Reviewer

Sneh P. Patel: Peer Reviewer

Smiti Nathan: Director, Co-Producer, Support Video Editor, Researcher, Scriptwriter

Patreon Supporters

Thank you to our paid Patreon members for supporting the creation of this video:

Nancy Fulton, James D., Giancarlo Annese, Thomas Martin, Stuart A. Griffin, Tagg, Ann Brookens, Diana Madden, Cole Guinn, Seemingly Unrelated Podcast, Chris, GeometryGirl

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