Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Gillian Woodward.
Speaker 2: And I'm Roger Basek. Spotlight Advanced uses a special English
Speaker 2: method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand
Speaker 2: no matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: You are flying over the Nasca Desert in Peru. The
Speaker 1: same flat, red earth stretches out in all directions until
Speaker 1: it is broken by lines. These white marks in the
Speaker 1: earth begin to connect into lines, making shapes, birds, insects,
Speaker 1: and strange men with knives. Each of these shapes is
Speaker 1: many kilometers long.
Speaker 2: These are the Nazca lines. The mystery of these huge
Speaker 2: shapes in the desert floor has long puzzled experts. Who
Speaker 2: or what made them? What purpose do they serve? Why
Speaker 2: would an ancient people make something that can only be
Speaker 2: seen best from the air. Today's Spotlight Advanced is on
Speaker 2: the mystery left behind by these desert shapes.
Speaker 1: There are many theories about who created the Nasca lines.
Speaker 1: Some even say that these lines are evidence of foreign
Speaker 1: beings visiting our planet floating in the sky. These beings
Speaker 1: must have cut the lines in the desert floor.
Speaker 2: With modern technology, the reality is at once much more
Speaker 2: common and much more unbelievable. Experts believe that the Nasca
Speaker 2: people created these lines between five hundred BC and five
Speaker 2: hundred AD. Though we know little about the Nasca people,
Speaker 2: the imagery in the lines is simil to those found
Speaker 2: in Nasca art. These cultured desert dwellers often painted animals
Speaker 2: such as killer whales, hummingbirds, and monkeys on their pottery.
Speaker 2: They wove similar shapes on their blankets and clothing.
Speaker 1: Archaeologists, those scientists who study ancient cultures, have an important question.
Speaker 1: How the Nascar could cut the lines. Some of the
Speaker 1: lines run on for many kilometers without bending. This would
Speaker 1: be a grand achievement today, but many of the shapes
Speaker 1: in the Nazca desert are nearly two thousand years old.
Speaker 1: There are no mountains nearby to see the shapes from above.
Speaker 2: Some experts believe that the Nazca may have used early
Speaker 2: hot air balloons to help them. Julian Knott was a
Speaker 2: British balloonist. He once made a small balloon using a
Speaker 2: fire and cloth like the Nasca made. After a short flight,
Speaker 2: he said, I.
Speaker 3: Do not see any evidence that the Nazca culture did fly,
Speaker 3: but they could have, and so could the ancient Egyptians,
Speaker 3: the Romans the vikings. Any culture with just a device
Speaker 3: to make cloth, and with fire you can fly.
Speaker 1: Theories like knots are interesting, but the truth may be
Speaker 1: much simpler. The NASCAR people could have made a straight
Speaker 1: line by tying a piece of rope between two posts.
Speaker 1: Cutting the lines in the earth was not difficult. The
Speaker 1: Nascar Desert's red soil is only a few centimeters deep.
Speaker 1: Beneath it is white colored rock. The Nazca would only
Speaker 1: have needed to remove a little earth to expose the
Speaker 1: differently colored earth below. With little to no wind in
Speaker 1: this desert, these shapes remained untouched.
Speaker 2: Whilst some experts believe they know how the Nascar made
Speaker 2: these lines, they do not know why. It is one
Speaker 2: mystery for which we may never know the answer. Why
Speaker 2: make such large shapes if you will never see them fully?
Speaker 2: Why start such a project with no immediate visible purpose.
Speaker 1: There have been many theories since people first rediscovered the
Speaker 1: lines in nineteen twenty seven. Some think that the lines
Speaker 1: held some religious purpose. Maybe the shapes were praised these
Speaker 1: people offered to their gods. Early discoverers thought they could
Speaker 1: have been a way to mark the stars. Maybe these
Speaker 1: shapes were ways of judging the years maybe they helped
Speaker 1: people find water in a land with very little.
Speaker 2: Recent discoveries have made these theories more complex. Masato Sakai
Speaker 2: is a researcher at Yamagata University. In twenty two twenty four,
Speaker 2: he and his team scanned images of the Nasca Desert
Speaker 2: using artificial intelligence, or AI. They designed this special program
Speaker 2: to find shapes like the Nasca Lines. Before this study,
Speaker 2: it took experts one hundred years to find four hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty shapes. The AI program found three hundred and
Speaker 2: three more in just six months. Sakai said the traditional
Speaker 2: method of study was identifying these shapes from high resolution
Speaker 2: images of this huge area.
Speaker 3: This was slow it risked missing some of them.
Speaker 1: Many of these new lines were much smaller than other
Speaker 1: shapes in the Nascar Desert. They showed strange pictures like
Speaker 1: fish holding knives. Several show the heads of dead enemies.
Speaker 1: Before this find, the best theory that the lines were
Speaker 1: places where the Nascar people performed ceremonies. They performed these
Speaker 1: religious services to ask their gods for rain.
Speaker 2: The new shapes do not disprove this theory, but they
Speaker 2: do invite more mystery into the story of these ancient
Speaker 2: shapes in the desert. Experts have identified many of the
Speaker 2: new animals drawn in the desert. Some come from the
Speaker 2: Amazon rainforest, many hundreds of kilometers away. These animals were
Speaker 2: somehow significant to the Nascar people. These may have symbolized
Speaker 2: growth or farming, but it is difficult to know why
Speaker 2: the Nascar drew animals from so far away.
Speaker 1: Some lines may have been for directions to water. Some
Speaker 1: lines may have been for watching the stars, but others
Speaker 1: may have been markers of important events. The larger shapes
Speaker 1: would have required many people to make, but smaller ones
Speaker 1: would not. Maybe these lines were training for larger shapes.
Speaker 1: Maybe some were made by a single person trying to
Speaker 1: make a permanent mark on the world.
Speaker 2: Looking to other cultures may help us understand the Parakas.
Speaker 2: People lived in the same area as the Nazca. These
Speaker 2: people also drew lines, but they lived several hundreds of
Speaker 2: years earlier. The Parakas also drew lines in the earth,
Speaker 2: but these lines were usually on hillsides a person could
Speaker 2: see them from the ground from villages where they lived.
Speaker 2: These smaller shapes had less precise lines. It was probably
Speaker 2: important that these shapes be seen by the people who
Speaker 2: drew them, but the Nazca people did not seem to
Speaker 2: care if they could see what they made. Instead, these
Speaker 2: lines were for the sky.
Speaker 1: Whatever these were for, the NASCAR lines represent an important
Speaker 1: part of human art and history. What they meant to
Speaker 1: the people that made them remains mysterious, but today we
Speaker 1: recognize them as important markers of what humans are able
Speaker 1: to do. In nineteen ninety four, UNESCO marked the lines
Speaker 1: as a World Heritage Site. This makes sure these sites
Speaker 1: are protected. It directs more care because of the site's
Speaker 1: importance for everyone in the world.
Speaker 2: Why do you think the NASCAR dru their lines? Do
Speaker 2: you have a favorite theory? You can leave a comment
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Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
Speaker 1: was mitchyo Osaki. The voices you heard were from the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is
Speaker 1: called the New Nazca Lines.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: partlet program. Goodbye,