The Nazca Lines: Geoglyphs on the South Coast of Peru.

What the Nazca Lines are, in a paragraph.

The Nazca Lines are a complex of geoglyphs — designs and figures made on the ground surface — covering approximately 450 square kilometers of the Nazca and Palpa plains in the Ica Region of southern Peru. They were made by the Nazca culture (a south-coast Andean society flourishing c. 100 BCE–800 CE) and by their predecessors the Paracas culture (c. 800–100 BCE), with the principal phase of geoglyph construction dated to approximately 200 BCE–500 CE on the basis of associated ceramic finds, OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dating of the surfaces, and stratigraphic analysis of the figures themselves. The geoglyphs comprise three main categories: long straight lines (some extending more than 14 km, with the cumulative line length across the site estimated at over 1,300 km); large geometric figures (trapezoids, triangles, rectangles, spirals) numbering in the hundreds; and biomorphic figures depicting animals, plants, and stylized humanoid figures, numbering approximately 70–80 in the originally-recognized catalogue, with the figure count substantially expanded by twenty-first-century surveys. Construction method is consistent and well-understood: the desert surface consists of dark iron-oxide-coated stones lying over a lighter-colored substrate, and the figures were produced by removing the surface stones (often piling them at the figure edges as low borders) to expose the lighter ground. The arid climate, the lack of wind erosion in this part of the Peruvian coastal desert, and the stable iron-oxide patination of the surface have preserved the figures essentially unchanged for two millennia. The geoglyphs were first systematically noted by Toribio Mejía Xesspe in 1927, brought to international attention by Paul Kosok's 1939 aerial observation, studied across five decades by the German mathematician Maria Reiche, examined astronomically by Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, and from approximately 2018 onward have been the subject of a Yamagata University program using drone photography and machine-learning analysis to identify previously-undocumented small figures. The case is open in the specific archaeological sense that the geoglyphs' principal function (astronomical, ritual-pathway, hydrological, or some combination), the meaning of the iconography, and the relation of the Nazca complex to other South American line systems remain matters of active investigation.

The documented record.

The discovery and initial recognition

The geoglyphs were known locally throughout the period after the Spanish conquest; the Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León briefly mentioned "signals" in the Nazca region in 1547. The first systematic archaeological notice was by the Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe, who walked portions of the pampa in 1927 and presented his findings at the 1939 International Congress of Americanists in Lima. Verified [1]

The international recognition of the geoglyphs is conventionally dated to June 1939, when the American historian Paul Kosok — in Peru to study Andean irrigation — flew over the pampa in a light aircraft and observed the figures from the air. Kosok reportedly described the site as "the largest astronomy book in the world," a phrase that established both the astronomical interpretation and the popular fascination with the geoglyphs. Kosok's 1940s work, conducted in collaboration with the German-born mathematician Maria Reiche, produced the first systematic mapping of the principal figures [2].

Maria Reiche's work

Maria Reiche (1903–1998) arrived in Peru in 1932 and from 1946 until her death conducted essentially continuous documentation of the geoglyphs, living for decades in a small house at the edge of the pampa. Verified Reiche surveyed the figures with theodolite and tape, produced detailed plans, and developed and defended the astronomical hypothesis: that the lines and the biomorphic figures collectively encoded solar, lunar, and stellar alignments, particularly solstice and equinox sun-set and sun-rise points, and that the figures themselves represented constellations or seasonal markers [3].

Reiche's work was the principal protective force for the geoglyphs from the 1940s through the 1980s; she lobbied successive Peruvian governments to restrict access, funded conservation work from her own resources, and produced popular books and articles that established the international profile of the site. The UNESCO World Heritage inscription in 1994 occurred in part on the basis of her sustained advocacy.

The dating

The dating of the geoglyphs has been progressively refined. Verified

• Paracas-period figures (the earliest), found particularly on the Palpa plain and on hillsides, are stratigraphically and stylistically assigned to approximately 400–200 BCE. These tend to depict humanoid figures with elaborate headdresses, often on slopes rather than on flat pampa surfaces.
• Nazca-culture geoglyphs, the principal phase, are dated to approximately 200 BCE–500 CE, with peak construction probably in the period 100–500 CE. Dating evidence includes potsherds of Nazca ceramic phases recovered from line surfaces, OSL dates from buried ground beneath the cleared figures, and (in a small number of cases) C14 dates from organic material associated with figure construction.
• Some late or possibly Inca-period lines have been identified, indicating continued though reduced geoglyph activity into the later first and second millennia CE.

The dating range is now well-established and is treated as secure in mainstream archaeological scholarship.

The construction method

The construction method is well-understood and has been independently reconstructed by experimental archaeology. Verified

The desert surface in the Nazca region consists of dark iron-oxide-coated stones overlying a lighter-colored substrate of weathered tuff and clay. To produce a geoglyph, the makers cleared the dark surface stones from the planned design, exposing the lighter ground beneath. The cleared stones were typically piled at the figure's edges, forming low borders that further define the design. Some figures were produced by what is essentially a single continuous line (the famous hummingbird and monkey are drawn as unbroken lines that return to their starting point); others are composite figures with multiple closed regions.

The arid climate (average annual rainfall less than 4 mm), the stable iron-oxide patination of the surface stones, and the very low wind regime in the Nazca pampa have preserved the figures essentially intact for two millennia. The figures' size — many are tens or hundreds of meters across — combined with the consistency of the surface, suggests the makers worked from scale plans, possibly small drawings on cloth or pottery that were enlarged using a system of stake-and-rope grid scaling. Experimental reconstructions by Joe Nickell (1983) and others have demonstrated that figures of comparable scale can be produced by small teams in days using only such methods.

The figures themselves

The recognized biomorphic figures, in approximate order of fame: Verified

• The Hummingbird: a precise single-line figure, approximately 96 m long.
• The Monkey: a single-line figure with a spiraled tail, approximately 93 m long.
• The Spider: approximately 46 m long.
• The Condor: a large bird figure, approximately 134 m long.
• The Tree and the Hands: smaller figures, located near the modern Pan-American Highway viewing tower.
• The "Astronaut" or "Owl-Man": a humanoid figure on a hillside, approximately 32 m tall, with a rounded head and one upraised arm. The "astronaut" designation is post-1968 popular nomenclature; the figure is conventionally read by archaeologists as either a shaman, a fisherman, or a stylized supernatural being in the Paracas tradition. The "astronaut" reading depends on suit-like outlines that are equally consistent with elaborate ritual costuming attested in Paracas iconography.
• The Whale, the Pelican, the Lizard, the Dog, and additional bird, fish, plant, and unidentified figures.

The geometric figures — trapezoids, triangles, rectangles, spirals, zigzags — are much more numerous than the biomorphic figures. They constitute the majority of the geoglyph count and the great majority of the cleared-surface area. Some trapezoids exceed 1.5 km in length.

Hawkins and the Aveni astronomical reassessment

Gerald Hawkins, the American astronomer who had earlier achieved prominence with his work on Stonehenge alignments, conducted a 1968 statistical analysis of Reiche's reported astronomical alignments at Nazca using computer simulations of solar and stellar positions for the relevant period. Hawkins found that the number of lines pointing at significant solar, lunar, or stellar events was approximately what would be expected by chance given the density of lines and the number of astronomical events tested. Verified Hawkins's analysis weakened but did not destroy the astronomical interpretation [4].

Anthony Aveni's much more extensive 1980s field surveys, published in Between the Lines (2000), produced a partial reaffirmation of the astronomical hypothesis: a small subset of lines do appear to mark significant solar events (particularly the December solstice sun-set), but the majority do not, and the astronomical reading cannot account for the full geoglyph complex. Aveni's work shifted the mainstream interpretation toward a multi-function reading in which some lines mark astronomical events, some mark ritual processional paths, and many connect to subterranean water sources [5].

The Johnson water hypothesis

David Johnson's fieldwork in the 1990s identified a strong correlation between certain Nazca lines and the locations of underground aquifers and the puquios (the subterranean water-channel system of the Nazca region, dating to the same culture). Verified Many of the lines, in Johnson's analysis, appear to mark the trajectories of subterranean fault zones along which groundwater flows. The trapezoidal figures, which are the most numerous geometric form, tend to align with or terminate at such water sources [6].

The hypothesis is now broadly accepted as accounting for a substantial subset of the geoglyphs, particularly the geometric forms. The Nazca region is hyper-arid and the Nazca culture is known to have depended on the puquios system; that the line system would mark water-related features is consistent with the culture's documented water-management practices.

The 1968 von Däniken claim

Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods (German edition 1968, English 1969) proposed that the Nazca Lines were "runways" used by extraterrestrial spacecraft, with the biomorphic figures functioning as identification markers. Claimed

Why this claim fails: the lines do not run on flat surfaces, they run over the natural topography of the pampa, including over ridges, gulleys, and hillsides; many of them go up the sides of mountains. The surface itself is soft (the lines were produced by removing surface stones; the substrate beneath is friable weathered tuff that would be churned to dust by any landing operation). The figures are not flat: many of the biomorphic figures are on hillsides at angles incompatible with any "marker" function. The Paracas-period hillside figures particularly cannot be runway markers; they are deliberately oriented to be visible from below, not above. The runway hypothesis is incompatible with the basic topography of the site and has been rejected by all subsequent archaeological investigation [7]. Disputed by the claim's proponents; the strong scholarly consensus is that the runway hypothesis is unsupported.

The Yamagata University drone-and-AI survey (2018–2023)

From 2004 onward, a Yamagata University (Japan) research team under Sakai Masato has conducted systematic field survey of the Nazca and Palpa pampas. From approximately 2018, the team has supplemented foot survey with drone photography and applied machine-learning image analysis to identify previously-undocumented small geoglyphs. The principal published results: Verified

• 2019: identification of 142 previously-undocumented figures, mostly small humanoid and animal figures, many on hillsides and many of Paracas-period style.
• 2022: a further 168 figures identified through machine-learning-assisted analysis of high-resolution drone imagery.
• 2023: additional figures identified through extended-area survey; the cumulative new figure count from the Yamagata project now exceeds 300, substantially expanding the recognized geoglyph catalogue [8].

The new figures tend to be smaller than the famous early-discovered biomorphic figures, more often Paracas-period in style, and frequently located on slopes rather than on the principal pampa surfaces. The expansion of the catalogue has clarified the chronological depth of geoglyph-making in the region and the continuity of the practice across cultures.

The 2014 Greenpeace incident at the Hummingbird

In December 2014, during the COP20 climate conference held in Lima, Greenpeace activists entered the protected zone surrounding the Hummingbird geoglyph and laid out a large cloth banner reading "Time for Change: The Future is Renewable" near the figure as a publicity action. Verified [9]

The activists' footprints in the desert surface — produced because the protected area must be approached barefoot or with specific protective overshoes, and the activists walked normally — left visible impressions adjacent to the Hummingbird. The Peruvian government condemned the action; Greenpeace issued an apology; the organization was prosecuted under Peruvian law for damaging a cultural heritage site. The damage is partly recoverable through careful surface repair but has left lasting marks visible in aerial photographs. The incident is referenced here because it demonstrates how fragile the geoglyph surfaces are even under the careful management that has protected them for two thousand years.

UNESCO World Heritage 1994

The Nazca and Palpa Lines and Geoglyphs were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 1994, under cultural criteria i, iii, and iv (a masterpiece of human creative genius; bearing exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition; an outstanding example of a type of building or landscape illustrating significant stages in human history). The inscribed area covers 75,358 hectares. Verified [10]

The major interpretive hypotheses, in order of mainstream acceptance.

The processional / ritual-pathway hypothesis

The currently most-widely-accepted reading interprets many of the lines, particularly the long straight ones, as ritual processional paths used by participants in ceremonies organized around the Nazca religious-political centers (notably Cahuachi, the major Nazca-culture ceremonial center near the pampa). Evidence: many lines terminate at or originate from sites with surface evidence of Nazca-period ceremonial activity; the puquios system associates lines with water sources whose use was probably ritualized; ethnographic parallels with later Andean processional ceremonialism. Claimed as the consensus; well-supported [5][6].

The water-marker hypothesis

Johnson's hypothesis (above) treats the geometric figures — trapezoids especially — as markers of subterranean water sources, with the lines themselves possibly serving as ritual conduits in the symbolic vocabulary of the makers. Now broadly accepted as accounting for a major subset of the geoglyphs. Verified at the level of significant correlation with water sources [6].

The astronomical hypothesis (modified)

Reiche's original hypothesis — that the lines collectively encode solar, lunar, and stellar alignments — has been modified rather than refuted by subsequent work. Aveni's analysis identifies a small but real subset of lines that mark significant solar events. The "world's largest astronomy book" framing is too strong; the "some lines have astronomical significance within a broader system" framing is consistent with the evidence. Claimed in modified form; partially supported.

The Cahuachi-and-Nazca-society hypothesis

Helaine Silverman's work in the 1980s–90s on Cahuachi — the great ceremonial center about 17 km southwest of the central pampa — has established that Cahuachi was the principal religious and political center of the Nazca culture, used for periodic pilgrimage and ceremonial gathering rather than as a permanent settlement. Many of the geoglyphs are read in this framework as accompanying the ceremonial use of Cahuachi: pathways for pilgrims, markers of journeys between Cahuachi and outlying settlements, and ritual designs activated by ceremonial movement [11]. Claimed

The extraterrestrial / "alien runway" hypothesis

The von Däniken claim, addressed above. Disputed by mainstream archaeology; incompatible with the basic topography and substrate of the site. The popular persistence of the claim reflects the rhetorical appeal of an "impossible" indigenous engineering feat to Western audiences who underestimated the technical capabilities of pre-Columbian American societies.

The Erich von Däniken / "Maria Reiche disagreed" framing

A sub-claim deserves separate notice: that Maria Reiche herself "disagreed" with the alien-runway hypothesis and dismissed von Däniken. Verified Reiche, in interviews and in published statements, was explicit that the runway hypothesis was incompatible with what she had documented about the figures and the substrate. Her response is sometimes quoted: "Once you remove the stones, the ground is quite soft. I'm afraid the spacemen would have gotten stuck."

The unanswered questions.

The full meaning of the iconography

The biomorphic figures — particularly the unique ones (the spider with its peculiar leg arrangement, the monkey with its spiral tail) — have been interpreted as constellations, as totemic clan symbols, as fertility figures, and as direct depictions of locally-significant animals. None of these readings is decisively supported by other Nazca-culture iconography (Nazca pottery and textiles depict many of the same animals, but the iconographic system the geoglyphs participate in is not fully decoded).

The full geoglyph count

The Yamagata project's continuing additions to the catalogue suggest that the full count of Nazca and Palpa geoglyphs is substantially larger than the historically-documented set. Whether the total number is in the high hundreds, the low thousands, or higher, remains to be determined by continuing survey.

The relation to other South American line systems

Line systems comparable to the Nazca complex exist elsewhere in the Andes, particularly the ceque system of Cuzco (a system of forty-one straight ritual lines radiating from the Inca capital, dating to the much later Inca period). Whether the Nazca and the Cuzco systems share a common Andean ritual-geographic tradition or are independent developments is a question on which current Andean archaeology continues to work.

The reason geoglyph-making ceased

The cessation of new geoglyph construction approximately at the end of the Nazca culture period (c. 500–800 CE) coincides with major climatic and political changes in the south coast region, including the rise of the Wari and the subsequent collapse of the Nazca polity. Whether the cessation reflects population decline, religious reorganization, the abandonment of Cahuachi as a ceremonial center, or some combination, is partially but not completely understood.

Primary material.

• The geoglyphs themselves, in situ on the Nazca and Palpa pampas, under the management of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and the Maria Reiche Center.
• Maria Reiche's field notebooks, plans, and survey materials, held at the Maria Reiche Museum in Nazca and at the German Archaeological Institute.
• Paul Kosok's 1947 paper, "The Markings of Nazca," Natural History, the principal early international publication.
• The Yamagata University Nazca Project photographic and survey archive, including the drone-survey image dataset used for machine-learning analysis.
• Excavation data and pottery sequences from Cahuachi (Silverman, Orefici, and successors).
• The OSL and C14 date series, published in Journal of Archaeological Science, Latin American Antiquity, and other peer-reviewed venues.

The sequence.

1. c. 800–200 BCE Paracas culture flourishes on the south coast of Peru. Earliest geoglyphs, particularly hillside humanoid figures, attributed to this period (c. 400–200 BCE).
2. c. 200 BCE–100 CE Early Nazca culture; transition to mature Nazca-period geoglyph construction. Cahuachi develops as a ceremonial center.
3. c. 100–500 CE Peak Nazca-culture geoglyph construction. The principal biomorphic figures (hummingbird, monkey, spider, condor) are produced during this period.
4. c. 500–800 CE Decline of the Nazca culture; reduced geoglyph construction; eventual abandonment of Cahuachi.
5. c. 800–1532 CE Wari and then Inca periods; some additional line construction; no major new biomorphic figures.
6. 1547 Pedro Cieza de León briefly mentions "signals" in the Nazca region in his Crónica del Perú.
7. 1927 Toribio Mejía Xesspe walks portions of the pampa and prepares the first systematic archaeological notice.
8. June 1939 Paul Kosok observes the lines from a light aircraft.
9. 1939 Mejía Xesspe presents at the International Congress of Americanists in Lima.
10. 1940s Kosok and Maria Reiche begin systematic mapping.
11. 1946–1998 Reiche's continuous field documentation and conservation work.
12. 1968 Erich von Däniken publishes Chariots of the Gods. Gerald Hawkins publishes the first computer-based statistical evaluation of the astronomical hypothesis.
13. 1980s Anthony Aveni's extensive field surveys.
14. 1980s–90s Helaine Silverman's excavations at Cahuachi establish the ceremonial-center context.
15. 1990s David Johnson's water-hypothesis fieldwork.
16. December 1994 UNESCO inscribes the Nazca and Palpa Lines and Geoglyphs as World Heritage.
17. June 1998 Maria Reiche dies.
18. 2000 Aveni publishes Between the Lines.
19. 2004–present Sakai Masato and Yamagata University team begin systematic survey.
20. December 2014 Greenpeace incident at the Hummingbird.
21. 2018–2023 Yamagata team adds 168+ newly identified figures through drone survey and machine-learning analysis; cumulative new figure count exceeds 300.

Cases on this archive that connect.

Göbekli Tepe (File) — another case in which a complex pre-modern construction project has been associated with both legitimate archaeological reconsideration and a fringe "extraterrestrial origin" claim. Both sites demonstrate that pre-modern populations were capable of substantially more sophisticated organized construction than the fringe claims assume.

The Antikythera Mechanism (File) — a related case in which an artifact's technical sophistication has been seized on by ancient-astronaut writers, with the same pattern of fringe claim and mainstream-archaeological refutation.

Atlantis (File 057) — on what counts as evidence for a pre-modern civilization. The Nazca complex is the inverse of the Atlantis case: a real, well-documented site that has been over-interpreted, where Atlantis is a literary tradition whose physical referent (if any) has never been located.

Planned: the Cuzco ceque system; the Marajoara culture; the Amazonian geoglyphs of Acre (a related but distinct South American geoglyph tradition); the Atacama desert geoglyphs of northern Chile.

Full bibliography.

1. Mejía Xesspe, Toribio. "Acueductos y caminos antiguos de la hoya del Río Grande de Nasca." Actas y trabajos científicos del 27° Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Lima, 1939.
2. Kosok, Paul. Life, Land, and Water in Ancient Peru. Long Island University Press, 1965. (Including the 1947 Natural History material.)
3. Reiche, Maria. Mystery on the Desert. Privately published, Stuttgart, 1968; multiple subsequent editions. The principal popular statement of the astronomical hypothesis.
4. Hawkins, Gerald S. "Astro-archaeology." Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory Special Report 226 (1968). The first computer-based statistical evaluation.
5. Aveni, Anthony F. Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru. University of Texas Press, 2000.
6. Johnson, David, Donald Proulx, and Stephen Mabee. "The correlation between geoglyphs and subterranean water resources in the Río Grande de Nazca drainage." In Andean Archaeology II, ed. Helaine Silverman and William Isbell, Kluwer/Plenum, 2002, pp. 307–332.
7. von Däniken, Erich. Chariots of the Gods? Econ-Verlag (German), 1968; English translation Putnam, 1969. (The runway claim, addressed and refuted by subsequent scholarship.)
8. Sakai, Masato, Akihisa Sakurai, Siwei Lu, et al. "AI-accelerated Nazca survey nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs and sheds light on their purpose." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, multiple papers 2019–2023.
9. Watts, Jonathan. "Greenpeace apologises to people of Peru over Nazca lines stunt." The Guardian, December 10, 2014.
10. UNESCO. "Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Pampas de Jumana." World Heritage List, inscription document, 1994.
11. Silverman, Helaine. Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World. University of Iowa Press, 1993.
12. Proulx, Donald A. A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography. University of Iowa Press, 2006.
13. Nickell, Joe. "The Nazca Drawings Revisited: Creation of a Full-Sized Duplicate." Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1983. (The principal experimental demonstration of the construction method.)