Using drone cameras, scientists have documented spectacular line drawings newly discovered in southern Peru. They are likely much older than the famous Nasca lines.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
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Mysterious geoglyphs discovered in Peru
The Nazca Lines in Peru are world famous. Now scientists have discovered similar geoglyphs in the province of Palpa - possibly even older ones. They hope to learn more about the ancient culture of those who made them.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
Giant geoglyphs
To capture the so-called geoglyphs in all their glory, the archeologists used drones. They photographed about 50 geometric drawings depicting humans and animals. 25 of them had never been documented before.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
Legendary symbols
The pictures in the Peruvian landscape show monkeys and a whale. "Many of the drawings depict warriors. From a certain distance they could be spotted with the bare eye. But many have disappeared with time," Luis Jaime Castillo from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru told magazine "National Geographic."
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
In exposed positions
In contrast to the Nazca Lines, which are edged into the desert, the newly documented drawings are mostly drawn on the side of mountain ridges. That makes the geoglyphs visible from the ground. Inhabitants of local villages have known about them for a long time.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
Witnesses of an old civilization
The drawings in the soil of Palpa are thousands of years old. Humans created them between 500 BC and 200 AD. They belong to the Paracas culture and the Topara culture.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
Ritual background
Because of previous research findings on the Nazca Lines it is very likely that geoglyphs are commonly used in fertility rituals. Beyond that, scienctist say that indigenous peoples also created the images when there were periodic climatic fluctuations.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
On the trail of Peru's indigenous cultures
With the help of the lines in Palpa the researchers hope to get new insights into the cultures of the region. "[...] it is a tradition of over 1000 years that precedes the famous geoglyphs of the Nazca culture, which opens the door to new hypotheses about its function and meaning," says Peruvian Ministry of Culture archaeologist Johny Isla, the Nazca Lines' chief restorer and protector.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Bautista
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The latest line drawings discovered by archeologists in Peru show geometric figures portraying humans, apes and a whale, according to a report published in National Geographic.
Twenty-five images of the previously undocumented line drawings — so-called geoglyphs, or "ground drawings" — in Palpa province in southern Peru were taken from drones, said Peruvian archeologist Johny Isla Cuadrado in the Peruvian daily, "El Comercio."
Scientists flew the drones over the region about 30 meters above the ground, and spotted 50 geoglyphs – 25 were unknown, while the local population was aware of the other 25 drawings.
Researchers hope that documenting the newly found line art will give them new insight into the area's ancient cultures.
Cuadrado said the massive drawings seem to point at "a tradition of over a thousand years that precedes the famous geoglyphs of the Nasca culture, and which opens the door to new hypotheses about its function and meaning."
A glimpse of the world-famous Nasca drawingsImage: Imago/S. spiegl
Predating the Nasca lines
Archeologists believe the Palpa drawings were created by the Paracas and Topara cultures between 500 BC and 200 AD, which would make them older by many centuries than the famous Nasca lines in the neighboring Nasca Valley.
And unlike the renowned Nasca sketches that were etched into the high desert sand and are only visible from above, the Palpa geoglyphs were found on the slopes of the region's hills, meaning they can also be observed from the ground.
