5,400 yr old canals in Peru

[stan gilliam]

Thanks, Frank, for the great links. I think this David Johnson is a genius.
Look at the image of the hummingbird....the beak is stuck in some of the
straight lines...as though he is drinking water...I also like Johnson's
idea that the lines are a "text" in a sense.. a means of communication.
Maybe they were sending a message to their gods up in the sky about being grateful for the underground water.
THis is so much more INTERESTING than alien airports.

On the climate issue, it is said that the Nazca lines are about 2000 years old. Johnson's article implies, in agreement with Leona, that the climate was dry back then, and that these lines show an astounding adaption to the difficult environment.

I thought I had seen other Nazca pictures somewhere in which the
straight lines went under the images of animals....maybe my memory slipped again....

[Walt3]

If you read todays type of news you will occaisionally see some artist doing some grand scale project for no particularly good reason. Like putting pink material around a group of islands (several years ago).

Unlike now, back then things were built to last

Maybe it was just a whacked artist who messed up the land and there is no religious meaning.?? By the way I liked that post elsewhere about the chicken dust baths causing trenches by doorways that puzzled experts.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[quote="Walt3"]
If you read todays type of news you will occaisionally see some artist doing some grand scale project for no particularly good reason. Like putting pink material around a group of islands (several years ago).

Unlike now, back then things were built to last

Maybe it was just a whacked artist who messed up the land and there is no religious meaning.?? By the way I liked that post elsewhere about the chicken dust baths causing trenches by doorways that puzzled experts.[/quote]

Come on, Walt!
A bit more realism please.
If, in those days, someone would have considered himself an 'artist' and would have proposed to build the Nazca Lines as a mere artistic project, his head would probably have been cut off.
If people built them (and who else could have?), they were built, like the pyramids, for religious reasons.

[Frank Harrist]

I don't think they were religious, but maybe an artistic representation for pragmatic reasons. They identified water sources and streams. Religion and ritual may have had a part in it, but overall I think it was a practical thing. People do decorate useful household items so why not take it to a larger scale? Maybe some of them were done just to try and out-do the other guy, as I think someone mentioned here before. Maybe there were different reasons for different ones. Probably no one explanation applies to all of the symbols or all of the lines.

[stan gilliam]

But Frank, if they wanted just to identify water sources, they could have
just put up a sign saying "This way to the water sources."
Or a big pile of rocks, or just some simple indicator.
BUt instead they drew GIGANTIC images in such a way that, 2000 years later we don't understand...
I have to agree with Rokcet this time, that the pictorial images must
have had religious significance.
Also agree that one person probably couldn't have gotten away with it
on individual initiative. Perhaps the kings or chiefs or shamans got together and decided these things should be done. I can see that maybe an individual shaman or other genius
figured out how to do it, though.
This is fun!

[Guest]

Baloney! Those were their signs and they all had their own meanings. They were only religious insofar as they pertained to the practical aspect of identifying different types and locations of water sources. It's only my opinon of course and I may be biased against religious crap.

[stan]

So, Guest, why would they go to the trouble
to create a gigantic spider, hummingbird,
and so on, if they were just being practical?
THe lines themselves (the straight ones) would have done
just as well.

[Leona Conner]

I put these in the same category as the cave paintings in Spain and France. No one will ever know just what the purpose was for making them, but they will always cause interesting discussions. Many scientists say the cave paintings were religious, but since none of them were around then how do they know. They could have been purely observations of the fauna around them at that time. The pictographs at Nazca could also have some other purpose than religious.

[stan gilliam]

I looked at a lot of pictures of the Nazca lines and read a good bit
on them yesterday.
Detailed photos show hundreds of lines, which were apparently done
over a long period of time. Also read that the area is about
15 by 35 miles. The lines criss- cross one on top of the other.
And what about the existence of apparently two or more systems or
styles of lines...the perfectly straight ones, the long narrow triangles,
and the big animal drawings. Impossible to be done by one person.
I agree, Leona, that we may never know absolutely why these things were made, but it seems we can make valid comparisons with other neolithic sites...large scale images such as the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio, giant horses in England, astronomical markers.
After more reading, I have to backtrack somewhat on my endorsement of David Johnson's conclusion that the images mark water supplies.
He may be right, in some cases, but that theory can't explain the huge
multitude of lines and images.

[Leona Conner]

Maybe only those lines made during a particular era are marking water sources. Since the lines were made over a long period of time, they could represent something different to the different people who made them. I'm curious about the man on the side of the cliff. He really does look sorta like an astronaut, doesn't he? Who made him and why?????????

[Realist]

Most of the giant horses/people carved in English hillsides actually date from the Mediaeval period. Some see them as a reaction against the overbearing power of the church.
As for Nazca, if the Australian Aborigines can mark water sources for millennia with piles of stone, why go to all the bother of making linear markings? And why must they have 'religious significance? It could be something as simple as demonstrating their cultural/political significance over their rivals.

[Frank Harrist]

Maybe it started out as a practical way to mark water and then people saw how easy it was to move the gravel and make symbols so they did it in their free time just for fun. It's very simple to do. Just move the gravel on the surface aside and expose the lighter sand underneath. As Leona says perhaps it was done by different ones at different time for different reasons. People do tend to copy one another.

[Minimalist]

I put these in the same category as the cave paintings in Spain and France. No one will ever know just what the purpose was for making them, but they will always cause interesting discussions. Many scientists say the cave paintings were religious, but since none of them were around then how do they know. They could have been purely observations of the fauna around them at that time. The pictographs at Nazca could also have some other purpose than religious.

Maybe it was just something to do on a cold night in the cave? After all, there was no internet back then.

[Frank Harrist]

Maybe it was just something to do on a cold night in the cave? After all, there was no internet back then.

I can think of better things to do on a cold night, but then I'm still not all that old.

[Frank Harrist]

When I was in 6th grade one of my friends had a small electric motor and a battery. He used it to carve his initials in the rock on the front of the school building. We all thought it was cool so before long there were about a dozen boys with electric motors carving the front of the school. We almost carved it all away. I tell this story to illustrate the monkey-see monkey-do mentality of humans. All it would take would be for one guy to doodle a mark in the dirt and show it to his friends and then they'd all start trying to out-do each other. This could explain the Nazca lines and lots of other oddities throughout the ancient world. Easter Island's moai, are a good example of the one-upping each other type of thing too. It's a theory which unfortunately will be next to impossible to prove. That type of thing goes on now and I'm sure it went on then too.