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Discoveries of long-hidden lines and figures etched into the Peruvian desert offer new clues to the origins and purpose behind the Nazca Lines.
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00:43As Muzca pessoas são um mistério.
00:45Eles não tinham linguagem escrita.
00:47E os desenhos desenhos que deixaram
00:49foram baflindo arqueólogos
00:52por quase um século.
00:56Qual era a função que eles tinham?
00:59É uma questão que nós ainda estamos perguntando.
01:03Agora, pesquisadores
01:05usam tecnologia 21st century
01:07para estudar profundamente a terra.
01:11Eles estão descobrindo
01:13figuras que foram conhecidas antes
01:14que o Nascar existiam.
01:21Quem vive aqui antes do Nascar?
01:24É uma pessoa mythológica.
01:26Olha aqui.
01:29Arqueólogos estão tentando
01:30juntar mais de 1,000 anos
01:32de história
01:33e encontrar evidências
01:35de vivas vivas
01:37no deserto do Nascar.
01:40É o maior centro do Nascar
01:43do Nascar do Nascar.
01:48Como começaram a começar?
01:51O que significaram?
01:54E por que acabaram?
02:00Nascar Desert Mystery
02:21Nascar Talking
02:31Right Now
02:41It is one of the most arid deserts in the world.
02:46Averaging less than an inch of rainfall a year.
02:51And running along Peru's southern coast.
02:58More than 1,500 years ago, the people here created remarkable earthworks across an area spanning
03:05about 200 square miles.
03:10Giant figures, a hummingbird, a spider, a monkey, and thousands of lines.
03:20Some more than 5 miles long, etched in the ground.
03:27They are known as the Nazca Lines.
03:32Technically, they are called geoglyphs, drawings on the earth.
03:39The Nazca geoglyphs can be seen in all their splendor from the air.
03:45Erosion and the remoteness of many of the lines meant that these vast designs
03:50were all but forgotten for more than a millennium.
03:55They were rediscovered in the 1920s.
03:58But it was not until airplanes started flying across the region that their true scale was revealed.
04:06There are estimates about how many geoglyphs there are.
04:10Around 6,000 or 7,000 geoglyphs.
04:14Most, almost 90%, were geometric motifs, lines, trapezoids, and around 10% figures.
04:23But what were they for?
04:29And who created them?
04:36Peruvian archaeologist Johnny Isla has been studying the Nazca geoglyphs for more than 30 years.
04:46The Nazca were a social group that developed along the southern coast.
04:53This territory is pretty arid because there's no water for most of the year.
05:00Their dwellings were along valleys, which are really small oases in the middle of the desert.
05:08Archaeologists named the ancient group of farmers and fishermen who once lived here the Nazca,
05:13after the local river valley.
05:18They used the surrounding desert plateaus as a canvas for drawing giant geoglyphs.
05:25The Nazca covered these plains with geoglyphs and turned this desert into a space which was inhabited,
05:33dynamic, social, and vibrant through time.
05:41Over the years, there have been many theories about these geoglyphs.
05:47that they were astronomical calendars, signs left by aliens, or appeals to gods looking down from above.
06:02But whatever the reason, the ancient people who lived in this area left a lasting mark in the desert.
06:14Today, urban expansion means some geoglyphs are on the outskirts of town.
06:23I live 500 meters from the geoglyphs.
06:29Here in Nazca, we are proud of what the ancestors left us.
06:36Who knows what the ancestors were thinking when they did this?
06:39But it's very beautiful.
06:49Nazca civilization disappeared more than a millennium ago.
06:52But a growing interest in the past has spurred a revival of ancient indigenous traditions,
06:59like the yakuremi, a celebration of water.
07:04The matter of indigeneity is very complex here in Peru.
07:08People will not often identify as indigenous.
07:12It is still something that is associated with an underdevelopment or a lack of progress.
07:18But they will identify themselves through dances.
07:21They will say, I dance that, so I am that.
07:25I sing that, so I am that.
07:30Candy Hurtado is an ethnomusicologist from Jauja in the highlands east of Lima.
07:36She is studying rituals and has come to Nazca to record the water festival.
07:42In the Andean worldview, we understand that time is not linear, but that it is cyclical.
07:49So that we are always, through ritual, connecting with the past, the present, and the future.
07:56We are connected to our ancestors.
07:59We are connected to the people that come after us in a very real way,
08:03as well as to the environment.
08:04The environment is also considered our ancestors.
08:20Peruvian archaeologists studying the environment to piece together the Nazca story
08:24have made surprising discoveries.
08:29Using drone images, they have identified a different type of geoglyph.
08:35Not on the flat desert plateaus, but on the hillsides.
08:42So now we have to see if we can explain better these figures and what will come out.
08:51Johnny Isla and his team are restoring his latest discovery, a very faded geoglyph.
09:11Years of erosion have damaged the geoglyph.
09:16Johnny's team moves stone after stone, by hand, to re-expose the lighter layer below.
09:22It's a painstaking process.
09:29When we realized that on the hillside there were other figures, other geoglyphs,
09:34we realized we have to change the way we thought and look to the hillsides,
09:39where we didn't think there were any drowns.
09:48The team has revealed the outline of a group of people walking.
09:53But it needs more work.
10:03The desert hillsides have long been overlooked.
10:08But now, there is newfound interest in them.
10:17It's really one of the most striking finds of recent times.
10:23It's the mountain cat, the pampas cat, an animal in danger of extinction.
10:34Almost 10,000 miles away in Yamagata, Japan.
10:40Archaeologist Masato Sakai studies drone footage from the Nazca desert.
10:46He's turned to a high-tech method of searching for geoglyphs.
10:51Artificial intelligence.
10:56At the beginning, we were looking at the northern Nazca plains,
10:58where hummingbirds, monkeys and other famous geoglyphs are concentrated.
11:04We let AI learn from these famous geoglyphs and other data from this area.
11:11By analyzing aerial images, computer algorithms can spot the cleared surfaces that form the figures.
11:20Once the AI knows what to look for, it begins scanning the desert for patterns that appear human-made.
11:31The software homes in on a very faint shape.
11:43We discovered it is a geoglyph of a person holding a club in the right hand.
11:51The person with the club, the people walking, and the pampas cat were all found on the sides of hills.
12:00And Johnny thinks this unexpected positioning is the clue to their purpose.
12:09These geoglyphs were made by people for people.
12:12As they are drawn on sides of hills, people could see them as they cross the desert or the valleys.
12:21They seem to be markers of territory or routes to the desert.
12:29But it isn't only their position that is unusual.
12:34They are in a different style from the classic Nazca images, like the monkey and the hummingbird.
12:42So were these giant geoglyphs made by the same people?
12:47Or someone else?
12:50To find out, researchers turn to other sources for designs and imagery that might match the figures on the hillsides.
13:01To identify and categorize these geoglyphs, we take a stylistic approach.
13:07We compare them with ceramics and textiles.
13:13They find similar motifs, but not from the Nazca period.
13:20These geoglyphs date to the year 200 or 300 BCE, which means that they were made before the famous Nazca
13:28geoglyphs.
13:30The hillside geoglyphs were created earlier than the Nazca are thought to have existed.
13:37So who was making geoglyphs before the Nazca?
13:41And why?
13:48In the 1920s, Julio César Teo, the first Peruvian archaeologist, found 429 mummies wrapped in extraordinary textiles in an ancient
14:00burial ground.
14:02In the Paracas Peninsula.
14:06So archaeologists called the ancient people the Paracas.
14:12The funerary bundles are stored in Lima, in the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru.
14:26The fabrics the mummies were wrapped in reveal the extraordinary skill and artistry of the Paracas.
14:36And the images and symbols provide insight into their world view.
14:43There are shamans in trances.
14:47Deities.
14:51And severed heads.
14:59One of the most iconic Paracas textiles has only recently arrived at the museum.
15:05Wow! Que lindo!
15:13In the 1930s, after Julio Tello's excavations in the Paracas Peninsula, there was a lot of looting and some pieces.
15:22This one among them, were taken out of the country.
15:26It ended up in Sweden.
15:30This is the first time archaeologist Delia Aponte has been able to examine the 2,000-year-old mantle.
15:40I'm happy.
15:42I've always wanted to see this piece.
15:46I'm surprised by the use of color.
15:50For the Paracas, colors have meaning.
15:54And the way they organize them is important.
15:57It's part of their identity.
16:00There is a symbolism we haven't deciphered yet, but which is definitely there.
16:07The Paracas imbued their funerary textiles with meaning.
16:11And Delia is particularly interested in their symbolism.
16:18Here we have a toad associated with humidity and agriculture.
16:24A few plants are sprouting from its back.
16:30Here there is a condor.
16:35Hummingbirds drinking from a flower.
16:39A bean in the form of a human.
16:43The imagery, related to animals and edible plants throughout the seasons, suggests that the Paracas textile is a symbolic representation
16:52of the agricultural cycle.
16:56I think this is a masterpiece.
16:59The pinnacle of 900 years of this society's development.
17:06Many of the Paracas images strongly resembled the newly identified hillside geoglyphs found in the Nazca region.
17:16It suggests that desert figures were created by the Paracas.
17:32The Paracas were ancient Peru's most accomplished weavers.
17:39Today, communities in the highlands of Cusco keep some of their ancient traditions alive.
17:44Buenos dias mamitas, buenos dias señores.
17:50Over here, they are warping, which is also traditional technique from the Paracas culture.
18:04Nilda Calañaupa Álvarez is a weaver and expert in textiles from Chinchero in the Cusco region, 350 miles from Lima.
18:14She has made it her mission to preserve and promote pre-Hispanic weaving methods.
18:19And here in Pitumarca, she works with weavers who practice Paracas weaving techniques.
18:27Paracas have managed many techniques which they adorned the huge mantas for afterlife.
18:37Textile tradition practiced today.
18:40Part of the traditional clothing and part of our identity.
18:45So different regions will have different types of textile.
18:50We are very lucky to have ancestors, civilizations, cultures like Paracas who left us such a rich textile tradition.
19:01We, as weavers, today we like to learn those techniques.
19:08And we like to reintroduce past to the younger generation for the future.
19:19Aracas finds were not limited to the peninsula.
19:27Archeological discoveries reveal the civilization stretched across a swath of land almost 250 miles north to south.
19:38And there is evidence of a settlement at a site called Animas Altas, Animas Bajas.
19:52I can see that this figure was cut at the neck.
19:57It could be the sacrifice of a figure which could actually represent a human sacrifice.
20:06Archeologist Aisha Bashir Bashar has been piecing together the history of this 250-acre site.
20:16Since 2009, we've discovered the facades of pyramids and also tombs of members of the elite.
20:25And we also discovered low platforms, which were workshops and residential sites.
20:34At the end of the dig season, the excavated areas get filled in to protect them.
20:39But Aisha can use the data the team collected to reconstruct the ancient Paracas site.
20:47The 3D reconstructions of the buildings at Animas Altas, Animas Baas, help us to show that under all that sand,
20:57we really have an Andean town which developed 2,500 years ago.
21:05This settlement appears to have been abandoned around the year 100, when the site was covered in earth and buried
21:11by the Paracas, creating earthen mounds known by the Quechua name of Waka, something sacred and revered.
21:28The finds at Aisha's site reveal objects and practices similar to other Paracas locations.
21:38Some 75 miles to the north, in the Chincha Valley, lie more Paracas sites, 20 massive wakas overlooking today's farmland.
21:55Archaeologists Charles Stanisch and Henry Tantalian have worked here for more than a decade.
22:01Classical Paracas.
22:05Some of the wakas now have buildings or entire villages built on top of them.
22:12But Charles and Henry's team have been excavating some of the mounds, such as this one, called Waka Soto.
22:24You can see a giant sunken court here.
22:28So we assume that this would have been painted in beautiful colors, at least white and red, probably yellow.
22:34We found stairs on either side of these courts.
22:38We discovered a spondylus shell and various other evidence of feasting.
22:45Spondylus shells, the remains of shellfish brought from as far away as Ecuador, were considered prestige offerings associated with water
22:54and fertility.
22:57Charles and Henry believe that it means this, Waka Soto, was a Paracas ceremonial site.
23:13Adobe walls erode over time, so it's difficult to be sure exactly what Waka Soto looked like.
23:20But it was clearly a monumental structure.
23:25For many years we thought that these were only ritual centers.
23:30But now we realize after our excavations down below that there's at least a square kilometer of village adjacent to
23:38the pyramids.
23:39We had a huge population living down there.
23:44Charles and Henry realized that the Waka Soto were right in the middle of a densely populated landscape.
23:50We have buried villages, a massive settlement system, a number of political centers, a ritual center, and this was the
24:00demographic, political and cultural capital of Paracas.
24:15Several miles away in the desert, Charles and Henry found a network of five more Waka Soto.
24:24Archeological finds suggest these remote platform mounds were also religious centers.
24:34People used to get together here to do celebrations.
24:39Over here we found a group of six mummies from the Paracas era.
24:43They were women.
24:46We also found the remains relating to elites who were possibly directing the worship that took place in this pyramid.
24:59As well as looking at the Waka Soto, the archaeologists studied the surrounding desert and made a startling discovery.
25:09As you can see behind, there's a long line, a couple kilometers long, that goes all the way to right
25:15in the middle of the Waka Soto site.
25:19It's one of several lines that leads straight to the desert mounds.
25:24But that's not all.
25:26So we can see up ahead a large pile of rocks.
25:31It's an intentional mound that is integrated into all of the lines.
25:35And this was one of the many, many places, about 200, that we found throughout the entire geoglyph area.
25:47Charles believes these were altars where Paracas pilgrims might have left offerings.
25:53If you use the analogy of pilgrimages from around the world, from almost all cultures, Hindu, Christianity, Muslim,
26:01they all have these kinds of pilgrimages where people stop and they know exactly what's to be done and when
26:07it's to be done.
26:08And this is exactly what we see throughout all of these lines.
26:18Charles and Henry think that these altars were ritual stops on the lines which led people to their ultimate destination,
26:25the desert ceremonial centers.
26:29But what motivated people to go on this journey?
26:35In the Andes, a classic way of joining spaces together and of survival
26:40is by exchanging goods from different ecological zones.
26:45So people from the coast gave fish and those from the mountains crops, for example.
26:55But the finds at the desert Huacas raise a question.
26:59With the Paracas capital in the lush green valley just a few miles away,
27:04why would the Paracas choose to meet and trade in the desert?
27:09The archaeologists have a theory.
27:12The reason they chose this landscape is because it was barren,
27:16it wasn't owned by anybody, and it was neutral.
27:19Paracas had a lot of intra-ethnic fighting going on,
27:23trophy head taking and all this and that.
27:25And so we know from history and ethnography
27:28that people will set up these neutral spaces in between zones
27:33where both all parties feel comfortable.
27:35and here you can feel quite comfortable.
27:39Charles and Henry believe that the desert was the setting for periodic markets
27:43where goods were exchanged.
27:47And the orientation of the lines and mounds suggests the Paracas markets
27:51may have been held during the winter solstice,
27:55which in Peru takes place in June.
27:59One of the great theories as to why civilization developed is that people in pre-capitalist times
28:06developed these elaborate marketplaces, fairs, pilgrimage areas
28:12where people came together and they exchanged products and marriage partners
28:16and gossip and have a good time.
28:18and this is how civilization really gets a kickstart.
28:24The last Paracas offerings and sacrifices at this site were made around 250 BCE,
28:30before the ceremonial center was covered with earth and abandoned.
28:43So what happened to the Paracas?
28:48Bioarcheologist and forensic anthropologist Elsa Tamasto Cajigal
28:53looked to DNA for an answer and got a surprise.
29:00There is a DNA type which is specifically inherited from the mother,
29:04and it's very easy to classify.
29:06In Native American populations there are only four lineages, ABCD,
29:12and when I did a test for research purposes,
29:15it turned out I matched the D lineage, most common among the Paracas.
29:21DNA analysis of human remains dating from 800 BCE to the year 800 helps explain what became of the Paracas.
29:30In the Palpa and Nazca area, it's very difficult to differentiate biologically between the Paracas and the Nazca.
29:38They are genetically very similar.
29:41Yes, we find cultural differences, which makes sense.
29:45As the centuries go by, people change in the way they behave.
29:52The research suggests that sometime before the year 100,
29:56the culture of the people living in the region shifted.
30:00And the Paracas became the Nazca.
30:06And while the styles changed, the Nazca continued the Paracas line-making traditions.
30:18But there were other similarities, too, as archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici found when he arrived in this area 40 years ago.
30:33When we got here, we found a hill which had the remains of walls on its surface.
30:42It was a clue that there was something there, not just a natural hill.
30:48The site, called Kawachi, turned out to be a huge Nazca complex.
30:57It is the largest adobe ceremonial center in the whole world, 24 square kilometers of great pyramids, large ceremonial enclosures.
31:09There was a lot going on with pilgrims arriving from almost 1,000 kilometers away.
31:17Cahuachi was the center, the beating heart of Nazca civilization.
31:28But there were no signs of permanent settlements.
31:32So, although similar to the older Paracas sites of Chincha, Cahuachi was a different type of ceremonial center.
31:43It was a pilgrimage site where people cannot access all areas.
31:48They have places they are allowed in and where they can perform their rituals.
31:57Giuseppe believes that priests performed their own rituals inside the pyramids, while the pilgrims remained camped outside.
32:08We excavated a few temporary campsites people went to.
32:13They ate the food they had brought and they could see from a distance what was happening inside Cahuachi.
32:31Just outside Cahuachi, a team of researchers has made a discovery.
32:59We do archaeology without digging. A non-invasive archaeology.
33:05Non-invasive archaeology.
33:06We do this with satellite remote sensing, remote sensing planes, drones and also with geophysical exploration techniques.
33:18Nicola Massini and his team have found lines leading to the Nazca ceremonial site.
33:26We can see a clear spatial and functional relationship between the geoglyphs and the pyramids.
33:42They found evidence that the pilgrims outside the Nazca ceremonial center were more than just spectators in the events.
33:51In this area, the entire setting of the geoglyphs is mainly made up of meandering elements,
33:57which clearly evokes the ritual activity of the processions.
34:02Imagine the Nazca praying, singing.
34:08So Nicola believes that while the Nazca religious elite could perform in the pyramids,
34:14the pilgrims carried out their own ceremonies along or within the lines in the desert.
34:22The geoglyphs and the pyramids can be seen as two faces of the same coin,
34:27of ceremonial activity which took place inside those structures,
34:33in the rooms and corridors of the pyramids.
34:36But ceremonial activity also took place along these geometric shapes.
34:48At the height of the Nazca civilization, sometime before the year 400,
34:53the evidence suggests different lines were created for different purposes.
34:59Straight lines led to ceremonial centers.
35:05Meandering ones were a stage for ritual.
35:09And the famous images were also used for rituals,
35:13and perhaps to appeal to the gods.
35:19But barely 300 years later,
35:22Nazca line-making fades away to nothing.
35:26Why?
35:28Some figurative motifs drawn on the pump-up were erased or deliberately covered up by the Nazca themselves.
35:36Before line-making dies out, the Nazca draw new shapes over some of their earlier figurative geoglyphs.
35:44And large geometrical shapes, such as trapezoids, become more common.
35:54Finds within these new geoglyphs hint at them no longer being simply pathways for processions.
36:00The Nazca were using them differently.
36:05We're at the base of a trapezoid made of stones, and the borders are well laid out.
36:12They finish at a more narrow point, where there are two small platforms where we think rituals took place.
36:21Johnny believes that the shift in design means there was a widespread change in the Nazca rituals.
36:29And there was a new element to the geoglyphs.
36:35We identified small mounds or altars in the desert.
36:40Altars with a series of things the ancient people left offerings.
36:45Like things they grew in the valleys.
36:47Seashells from the ocean.
36:49Objects made of copper or semi-precious stones and spondylus shells.
36:58These altars were no longer ritual stops along the way, as they had been in Paracas times.
37:05For the Nazca, they were a focal point of worship on the trapezoids, playing a much more central role.
37:16What happened to cause such a change from the Nazca's previous geoglyph-making tradition?
37:28In Kawachi, Giuseppe found some clues.
37:35This is a big ceremonial precinct, one of the places where ceremonies were held.
37:44When we excavated it, it was completely covered by a layer of alluvial soils.
37:52Alluvial soils are deposited by surface water.
37:56They are evidence of flooding.
38:00We found a buoy in it who had been carried here by the water, who had drowned.
38:07There is evidence that the area had been hit by a major flood.
38:12And the layers of sediment here reveal this flooding wasn't an isolated incident.
38:18It was a recurring event.
38:22There are frequent floods, one after the other.
38:25As well as a terrible earthquake, which destroys a large part of Kawachi.
38:33Today, the region experiences flooding at two to seven year intervals.
38:37Caused by the weather phenomenon known as El Nino.
38:41A warming of Pacific seawater leads to low air pressure, increased rainfall and flash flooding.
38:50It was a mega El Nino event, followed by an earthquake,
38:54which destroyed large parts of the ceremonial center of Kawachi sometime around the year 400.
39:02Giuseppe found thousands of shards at Kawachi.
39:05Remains of valuable pottery.
39:09Which was smashed at the pyramids.
39:11Most likely as a sacrifice as the Nazca appealed to the gods.
39:21There was a big change in Nazca society and its relationship with the deities.
39:26It seemed the gods had abandoned them.
39:36And Giuseppe believes that in response, the Nazca abandoned Kawachi.
39:48The floods were followed by periods of prolonged drought.
39:54And the layout of big trapezoids hints at the Nazca's main concern.
40:00Many point towards the most important mountains in the region,
40:04which is where the water comes from in the summer months.
40:15In Las Trancas, one of the region's valleys,
40:18Nicola Massini and his team think they may have found an answer
40:22to how the Nazca dealt with their increasingly serious water problem.
40:29From satellite images, we discovered these peculiar round shapes.
40:39Near the round mounds, they come across something else.
41:06They find a trapezoid geoglyph close to these mounds.
41:11It points to Cerro Marcha, the mountain that provides the region with water in the summer months.
41:17It suggests the mounds are significant for something.
41:22Today, we'll do a 3D study with the drone.
41:28And then we'll go over with georadar, a geophysics research tool.
41:34The drone and ground-penetrating radar find evidence of an underground tunnel.
41:40The remains of an ancient aqueduct called Apukyo.
41:51The Nazca engineered an extensive network of aqueducts,
41:54which tapped into subterranean water coming from the mountains,
41:58allowing them to bring it to the surface to store and distribute.
42:07So, we have four elements of the landscape.
42:11The sacred mountain.
42:13The geoglyph, where the ceremonial and ritual activity takes place.
42:19The Pukyo, seen for its ability to produce water almost as some sort of miracle,
42:26which is why they thanked the deity.
42:29And the result of all of this is the valley, an oasis where they farmed.
42:37There may have been as many as 50 aqueducts in Nazca times.
42:42Thirty-six are still in use today.
42:52The rise of the trapezoid geoglyphs coincides with an increase in dramatic and violent images on Nazca pottery around the
42:59year 500.
43:01Including trophy heads in greater numbers than before.
43:06Are things getting desperate for the Nazca?
43:12Trophy head iconography is very common among the Nazca.
43:16And real trophy heads have been found.
43:21It could have been confrontations between different communities, between enemies.
43:26But another theory is that it could be a ritual.
43:35Elsa believes the Nazca may have appealed to their deities in a way similar to an ancient and violent ritual
43:41still practiced today.
43:46Today, in the Cusco region in Canas, a ritual war is waged among communities that are not enemies and who,
43:55on a given date, in a given space, come together in confrontation.
43:59It's a real confrontation. People die and are injured. And the blood that is spilled from these clashes is seen
44:09as an offering to the Mother Earth relating to fertility.
44:16Could the Nazca have practiced bloody rituals as a response to a lack of rainfall?
44:32What was causing the droughts?
44:35Were they just part of natural climate cycles? Or was something else going on?
44:46More than 6,000 miles away, at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
44:54Conservation botanist Oliver Whaley and archaeobotanist David Beresford-Jones have been trying to understand the environmental and ecological pressures the
45:03Nazca were facing.
45:06About 20 years ago, they were studying changes in the ecosystem.
45:11Traveling off-road through the desert, they found one environment they didn't expect.
45:20We came across a dune and we found a twittering, warm, green, verdant forest, almost sunken into the desert.
45:35The Yusaka Forest is six miles long and only a few miles from the Nazca Ceremonial Centre at Kowachi.
45:44It was full of absolutely enormous trees, a very cool, shady, beautiful forested environment.
45:51And it suddenly made me think that perhaps the environments of the past were rather different to the sorts of
45:58environments one sees today.
46:05In order to test his hypothesis, David and his team analyzed soil from different areas in the Nazca Desert.
46:13We took samples from the floor of the Yusaka woodland and then we compared those to soil samples from parts
46:20of the south coast which are today desertified.
46:23And we found that the pollen samples were directly equivalent. In other words, these now desert landscapes had once been
46:30forested.
46:34What happened to the forests?
46:39The soil samples show trees in the earlier layers were later replaced by agricultural crops.
46:46The forests had been cut down by the Nazca. But why?
46:56After the year 500, a rising empire from the Andean Highlands, the Wari, was spreading out across Peru.
47:07Distinctive Wari finds show they reached the Nazca region.
47:11One of the reasons Wari were on the south coast was because they wanted to extract cotton, which they couldn't
47:17grow in the highlands.
47:19The Nazca valleys, kept fertile by the aqueducts, were perfect places to grow cotton and other crops.
47:27Coming under the influence of a more powerful civilization, the Nazca cut down their forest to make space for agriculture.
47:35The Nazca were pushed by the Wari to overextend their agriculture, eating into the last relics of forest.
47:46David and Oliver tried to gauge just how much of the Nazca's forests still exist.
47:53We estimate that from the original early Nazca forest extent, we've probably got less than 5%, it's probably 2 or
48:023% of the original forest cover.
48:09For centuries, the trees had maintained an ecological balance.
48:13And large-scale deforestation led to a tipping point, causing irreversible damage to the ecosystem.
48:23The ground became vulnerable to erosion, and the lack of trees sped up desertification.
48:29For the Nazca, it marked the beginning of the end.
48:36So this is what the forest was like in 2001.
48:41Today, what little remains of the ancient Nazca woodland is under threat once again.
48:47It is being cut down and burnt to be sold as charcoal.
48:52Tragic.
48:53Yeah.
48:59To try and stop the illegal deforestation,
49:03Royal Botanic Gardens Q supports scientists and conservationists who monitor the remaining Usaka forest.
49:12Alfonso Orellana Garcia is local to the area.
49:19This is a huarango tree forest.
49:23The mother tree, the tree of life, that's what we call the huarango.
49:28By burning, felling our trees, and making forests disappear, we are repeating past mistakes.
49:37Today, Usaka is a dwindling haven for wildlife familiar to the Nazca.
49:42Like hummingbirds.
49:47And the pampas cat, etched into the hillside.
50:01Geoglyph making, which began with the Paracas, but reached its peak in Nazca times, starts declining as Nazca society falls
50:09apart.
50:14This tradition of making geoglyphs ended around the year 650-700, when Nazca society in this region also came to
50:24an end.
50:26The evidence suggests that as they faced ecological collapse, many Nazca abandoned this landscape and scattered, assimilating into the huari.
50:38They had to emigrate.
50:42Some went eastwards, up the mountains where the rains were more frequent.
50:48Others went south.
50:55The remnants of the great civilizations of the Paracas and the Nazca remained etched into the landscape, virtually forgotten for
51:04hundreds of years.
51:06Today, archaeologists believe that the geoglyphs were multifunctional.
51:12They were ritual pathways, territorial markers, the stage for ceremonies.
51:21Their design and use changing over a millennium.
51:30And the legacy of the sophisticated societies that created the lines, lives on.
51:39The descendants of the Paracas, of the Nazca, of the Incas, we are alive. We are here.
51:46Most of us in Peru, descend from these ancient populations.
51:52And we are very proud of our indigenous past, and interested in learning about it.
51:57And we cherish it.
52:26The
52:33Transcrição e Legendas Pedro Negri
52:59Legendas Pedro Negri
53:28Legendas Pedro Negri
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