The fact that
we have a second incidence of these geo lines takes a lot of the mystery out of
the process. Community complexes needed
communal gathering areas for annual events, much as we do today. Thus a flat high desert or even a local
stretch of waste land is a natural locale.
They are likely at most a day’s walk from home for participants.
With that
yearly incentive, it becomes a clan to dress up their own campsite and to help establish boundaries in conjunction with
others. As well, if ritual processions
are happening, then the road bed will be bounded as well.
All this
captures the spirit of the Nazca lines and until compelling arguments arise is
enough explanation.
I note that the lines here appear to be formed by smoothing out a procession way and that they appear to be disordered and merely removed by tossing.
Older
Than Nazca: Mysterious Rock Lines Marked Way to Ancient Peru Fairs
By Stephanie Pappas, Senior
Writer | May 05, 2014 03:00pm ET
New rock lines discovered in Peru predate
the famous Nazca Lines by centuries and likely once marked the site of ancient
fairs, researchers say.
The lines were created by people of the
Paracas, a civilization that arose around 800 B.C. in what is now Peru. The
Paracas culture predated the Nazca culture, which came onto the scene around
100 B.C. The Nazca people are famous for their fantastic geoglyphs, or rock lines, built in the shapes of
monkeys, birds and other animals.
The new lines date to around 300 B.C.,
making them at least 300 years older than the oldest Nazca lines,
said Charles Stanish, the director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at
the University of California, Los Angeles, who reported the new find today (May
5) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"They used the lines in a different way
than the Nazca," Stanish told Live Science. "They basically
created these areas of highly ritualized processions and activities that were
not settled permanently."
The closest European analog, Stanish said,
would be the medieval fairs that brought visitors from far and wide.
Ancient
fairs
Stanish and his team discovered the lines in
the Chinca Valley, which is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Lima,
Peru. The area has a history of pre-European-contact settlements stretching
from at least 800 B.C. to the 1500s A.D.
Archaeological surveys revealed large, ancient mounds in the valley.
Over three field seasons, Stanish and his colleagues mapped these mounds, as
well as nearby rock lines associated with each mound. They found 71 geoglyph
lines or segments, 353 rock cairns, rocks forming circles or rectangles, and
one point at which a series of lines converged in a circle of rays. The
researchers also excavated one cluster of man-made mounds.
The excavations and mapping revealed a
carefully built environment. Some long lines marked the spot where the sun
would have set during the June solstice (the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Two U-shaped mounds also pointed
toward the June solstice sunset, and the largest platform mound on the site
lined up with the solstice as well. These lines and mounds probably served as a
way to mark time during festivals, Stanish said.
Some lines are set out to frame pyramid structures, Stanish said. The lines are parallel, but
because parallel lines seem to converge with distance, these framing lines
appear to point directly at pyramids. Other lines run parallel to roads that
are still used today, Stanish said.
"I don't think people needed the
signposts, but it was more kind of a ritualized thing, where you come down and
everything's prepared," he said.
Andean
trade
The desert lines and mounds are about 9
miles (15 km) from settlements near the coast. Stanish and his colleagues
suspect that the ancient "fairgrounds" were built on land that was
useless for farming and were intended to attract tradespeople and buyers from
the coast and the Andes highlands.
The mounds, pyramids and lines were likely
the ancient version of neon signs, Stanish explained: "We're expending
time and effort and resources to make our place bigger and better," he
said, explaining the mindset of those who created the constructions. The various
settlements on the coast probably competed to attract the most participants to
their own fairs.
To confirm this notion,
the researchers plan to excavate pyramids near the coast, looking for artifacts
that would link settlements to the desert lines and mounds.
The discovery of these older rock lines
emphasizes the geoglyphs had more than one function, Stanish said. People have
long looked for "the" reason for the Nazca lines, but it's more accurate to think of the
lines like multi-purpose technology, he said.
"The lines are effectively a social
technology," Stanish said. "They're using it for certain purposes.
Some people have said the lines point out sacred mountains. Sure, why not? The
lines [might] point out sacred pyramids. Why not? The lines could [also] be
used to point out processions," Stanish said of both the Nazca and Peru
lines.
In that way, Stanish said, the lines are
like pottery: one invention used for multiple purposes.
"Native Americans in this part of the
world were extremely ingenious," he said.
1 comment:
nice blog.
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