Japan research team newly finds over 300 geoglyphs in Peru’s Nazca

YAMAGATA, Japan (Kyodo) — A Japanese academic team has newly discovered more than 300 geoglyphs in a desert in Peru’s Nazca utilizing artificial intelligence in analyses of aerial photos.

The average length of the etchings is some 9 meters, smaller than the well-known figures of the Nazca Lines, the team from Yamagata University said, noting it assumes ancient people in less populated groups drew them to share information about rites and livestock.

The finding was introduced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America earlier this week.

In the Nazca Pampa, a total of 430 geoglyphs had been discovered in explorations that began in the 1940s. The university’s team, in collaboration with the Japanese arm of International Business Machines Corp., had AI-aided systems learn geoglyph patterns to speed up the search for previously undiscovered ones.

The team led by professor Masato Sakai examined 1,309 locations in Nazca for potential geoglyphs, believed to have been created some two thousand years ago by removing stones and gravel to be piled up along the edges of the patterns. Lines were newly discovered in 303 places through the research, which included fieldwork in the desert from September 2022 to February 2023.

The relatively small geoglyphs feature humans and animals, including an orca holding a knife, and were found near winding paths, according to the team.

Sakai, an anthropologist, said the team hopes the latest discovery will help conserve the area by leading to measures such as designating the area a park.