AI decoded Nazsca Lines: 303 New Geoglyphs

[quintessentone]

So I thought it was important that everyone here learn that the Nazsca lines connection to alien landing sites has been debunked.

"The data revealed a hidden pattern that human eyes had missed for two millennia. It turns out the Nazca people weren't mapping the stars, and they weren't sending messages to aliens. They were building a sophisticated, two-level communication system designed for a completely different purpose."

The purpose? Ceremonial practices and sacrifices.




"See Newly Discovered Nazca Drawings That Depict Llamas, Human Sacrifices and MoreAn A.I.-assisted study identified 303 previously unknown geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert. The art features surprising figures, like orcas holding knives"
See Newly Discovered Nazca Drawings That Depict Llamas, Human Sacrifices and More

"“On some pottery from the Nazca period, there are scenes depicting orcas with knives cutting off human heads,” Sakai tells New Scientist. “So we can position orcas as beings that carry out human sacrifice.”"

"The purpose of the Nazca people’s massive illustrations, which are seemingly only appreciable from a bird’s-eye view, remains a mystery, though some historians posit that the civilization created the illustrations with a spiritual motive."

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That spiritual motive may have been for their perceived nature Gods.

[Maxmars]

It has always seemed to me that anything academia can't explain gravitates towards... "it was a religious thing."

It is kind of an annoyance.

But then alternatives appear... and often.. the narrative might be just as annoying.

I really can't imagine the mindset of ancient megalith and monument builders, the Nazca lines are no exception.
To employ the amount of pure manpower labor (sometimes for generations) as a matter of worship seems
extraordinarily ambitious...

Where are current examples of such vast projects that weren't just vanity?  Built, only because they could.
Could this have been a religious institutions' swan song?  Burning lives to "tag Nazca" for a god that never shows.

I doubt that we can deduce everything about this massive work... I'm glad that people haven't stopped looking, though some will, being satisfied that it must be religious... we've lost lots of observations with such declarations.

So now, an LLM output has produced from it's "training data"... a new idea?  No...

Academia has always maintained this had to be a ritual/cultural thing.... 
and now the 'effect' of an LLM (we will affirm is "AI") on our accumulated data confirms that what information it has analyzed shows "it is what we thought"... are we really surprised?

What "new" analytical form produced this "new" perception?  None.  It was in there already.

These tools are amazing... we just need to "use" them and not let the "AI masters' make pronouncements about things while pretending it was an AI that did it anything other than confirm what it's been metaphorically trained to.

[ANNEE]

It has always seemed to me that anything academia can't explain gravitates towards... "it was a religious thing."

"God of the gaps".

That's what Neil deGrasse Tyson calls it

[quintessentone]

Well some of them came to that conclusion because some of the new 303 geoglyphs depicted decapitated heads. Maybe it's the nature gods of the human sacrifices theory for this one. Could also be sky, stars, sun and moon gods too. They don't know how many more geoglyphs there are yet to find.

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"Purpose and Theories
Despite decades of study, the exact purpose of the Nazca Lines remains uncertain. Many archaeologists believe they had religious significance. Some suggest they were created as offerings to gods to ensure fertility, rainfall, or successful crops in the harsh desert environment. Others argue that the lines functioned as astronomical markers or ceremonial pathways, possibly aligning with the sun, moon, or stars for calendrical purposes. Another theory proposes that they served as sacred routes for rituals, connecting shrines, water sources, and ceremonial centers."

The Mysterious Nazca Lines: Messages from the Past?

This article implies they were headhunters.

"Early Nazca period ceramics indicate that the initial purpose of trophy heads may have been related to agriculture, with iconography, such as the Sprouting Head, showing trophy heads and plants growing and some of the plants were in the shape of the trophy heads.[sup][11][/sup][sup][13][/sup] The burial of the heads suggests that the trophy heads may have been from Nazca people and not from other people.[sup][14][/sup] During the Middle Nazca period, the number of severed heads appeared to have increased, this may be due to the pan-Andean drought.[sup][11][/sup][sup][14][/sup] In the late Nazca period, the number of trophy heads reaches its peak with the skulls having an increase in damage to the skull when compared to previous periods.[sup][14][/sup] During the Middle Nazca period, the number of severed heads appeared to have increased dramatically, judging from the remains. In the late Nazca period, the number tapered off, although the practice of decapitation remained popular in this period.[sup][9][/sup] Late Nazca iconography suggests that the prestige of the leaders of Late Nazca society was enhanced by successful headhunting.[sup]["[/sup]

Nazca culture - Wikipedia

[argentus]

Good thread, thanks!    An excellent use of AI -- to analyze and focus physical data points.

Imagine yourself in a very old, simple culture.   Imagine the reasons you might make a picture on the ground that you could never hope to see.   Nevermind all the precise geometric calculations and planning, and marking and execution of plan necessary to make such a thing, and the time involved to do so.  

If there were never any value or benefit, no gods to appease, why would you do so?

"The purpose of the Nazca people’s massive illustrations, which are seemingly only appreciable from a bird’s-eye view, remains a mystery, though some historians posit that the civilization created the illustrations with a spiritual motive."   This is a boilerplate, pat statement, imo.   It certainly does nothing to disavow or discredit the notions that their gods were ariel phenomenon.  

SOAD - Aerials  

If you were by yourself on the ocean, would it ever occur to you to wave at nobody?

[Encia22]

It just hit me! Some of their imagery was of birds. What if it's simply that they worshipped birds to the extent that they made those giant geoglyphs simply to appease them, which, apart from any spiritual deities, would be the only living creatures to see them when in flight (oh, and flying insects, too)?

[ANNEE]

What didn't have religious connotations "back in the day"?

Seems everything back then was about gods/goddesses.

[quintessentone]

It just hit me! Some of their imagery was of birds. What if it's simply that they worshipped birds to the extent that they made those giant geoglyphs simply to appease them, which, apart from any spiritual deities, would be the only living creatures to see them when in flight?

That's a brilliant deduction! A sort of dedication to perhaps birds being pollinators to help their crops bear fruit.

[Byrd]

To employ the amount of pure manpower labor (sometimes for generations) as a matter of worship seems
extraordinarily ambitious...

In the case of the Nazca lines, the actual manpower and work is pretty minimal.  As the article indicates, they basically shifted small rocks (the area is covered with rocks ranging from the size of pebbles to (less frequently) the size of a doubled fist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines) and scraping at the shallow covering layer of dirt to the rock below.

A team of 10 could create one image in less than a month.

[quintessentone]

What didn't have religious connotations "back in the day"?

Seems everything back then was about gods/goddesses.

And human sacrifices. So many primitive peoples back then engaged in animal and/or human sacrifice or headhunting or burning babies in furnaces perhaps because of desperation or fear of different factors. But for the Nazsca peoples, I have yet to see a flying saucer image on any of their art work.