Thanks to eight months of field work, archaeologists from Japan’s Yamagata University discovered 168 large figures near the city of Nazca in Peru.
“ It is believed that the geoglyphs date from between 100 B.C. and 300 AD”, according to the researchers in a press release, and correspond to human figures and animals such as orcas, cats, birds, camels and snakes.
The research, which used high-resolution aerial photography and drone images, was led by academic Masato Sakai in collaboration with Peruvian archaeologist Jorge Olano.
Some are shaped like animals and others like people
The 168 recently discovered geoglyphs are added to another 190 that were found until 2018, thus having a total of 358 geoglyphs discovered near the Nazca lines (also written as Nasca), declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1994.
These geoglyphs were created in ancient times by removing black stones from the earth’s surface to expose a deeper layer of white sand.
Researchers have explained that there are two types of geoglyphs: those of the linear type and those of the relief type. Five of the recent findings are linear, while the remaining 163 are relief.
The study is the product of an alliance between the Ministry of Culture of Peru and the University of Yamagata for the conservation and scientific research of geoglyphs, thanks to which an archaeological park was established in 2017 in order to protect the geoglyphs discovered by the university in the Aja area, near the center of the city of Nazca.
Now, archaeologists are using artificial intelligence to clarify the distribution patterns of the geoglyphs and thus contribute to their conservation.