AI-accelerated Nazca survey of Peru nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs and sheds light on their purpose

Amazing stuff!

Several of the usual science news outlets already covered this latest research, but I kind of ignored until know.

"Significance

This paper demonstrates how AI accelerates discoveries in archaeology, even in a region as well known as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site of Nazca. Our vastly improved account of relief-type figurative geoglyphs reveals that they differ from line-type figurative geoglyphs beyond their style and size. The line type and relief type also differ in the motifs they depict, their distribution, and their relation to the meshwork of winding trails and the ceremonial network of linear/trapezoidal geoglyphs. Taken together, this makes a compelling case for different nature and purposes of relief-type and line-type figurative geoglyphs: the former sharing information about human activities with individuals or small groups and the latter built and used by the community for ceremonial purposes.

Abstract

It took nearly a century to discover a total of 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs, which offer significant insights into the ancient cultures at the Nazca Pampa. Here, we report the deployment of an AI system to the entire Nazca region, a UNESCO World Heritage site, leading to the discovery of 303 new figurative geoglyphs within only 6 mo of field survey, nearly doubling the number of known figurative geoglyphs. Even with limited training examples, the developed AI approach is demonstrated to be effective in detecting the smaller relief-type geoglyphs, which unlike the giant line-type geoglyphs are very difficult to discern. The improved account of figurative geoglyphs enables us to analyze their motifs and distribution across the Nazca Pampa. We find that relief-type geoglyphs depict mainly human motifs or motifs of things modified by humans, such as domesticated animals and decapitated heads (81.6%). They are typically located within viewing distance (on average 43 m) of ancient trails that crisscross the Nazca Pampa and were most likely built and viewed at the individual or small-group level. On the other hand, the giant line-type figurative geoglyphs mainly depict wild animals (64%). They are found an average of 34 m from the elaborate linear/trapezoidal network of geoglyphs, which suggests that they were probably built and used on a community level for ritual activities."

AI-accelerated Nazca survey nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs and sheds light on their purpose | PNAS (open access)

Fig. 1 Classification of geoglyphs and walking routes found on the Nazca Pampa.

Fig. 2 Fifteen of a total of 303 newly discovered relief-type figurative geoglyphs from the AI-assisted survey.

Fig 4 Field survey confirms 303 new relief-type figurative Nazca geoglyphs. Map of 303 newly confirmed and 380 previously known (black) figurative relief-type geoglyphs. Newly confirmed geoglyphs are individually AI predicted (yellow), part of an AI-predicted geoglyph group (rose), or identified in the field survey without AI predicting that location (green).