Stretching across over 500 kms/sq in the arid coastal strip south of Lima, Peru's "Nazca Lines", could possibly be the most mysterious of the ancient sites to be seen in all South America.Made up of huge geometric shapes, straight lines and animal shaped murals scrawled into the stony desert, they've confounded some of the best minds in modern archaeological science for over half a century as to who created them and for what purpose.
Although alien visitation theories exist, stronger evidence suggests the culprits as a local pre-Inca people known as "Nazca" of which the nearby settlement, nowadays offering flights to visitors over the lines, owes it´s name. Similar geometrical designs have been since found on preserved pottery in nearby Nazca burial sites, alongside the unearthly looking skeletons of such a people who literally elongated their youths skulls through pressure casts in an effort to show reverence to their Andean mountain gods.
Although a pre-Inca civilisation, the Nazca continued to exist under the Inca empire´s rule until being sadly wiped out by European-introduced disease soon after, yet not before leaving traces of amazing cultural innovation such as networks of water-carrying underground tunnels leading from nearby mountaintops to the vast coastal desert they called home. Locals still use these tunnels for fresh water today, although scientists recently discovered that an extended drought existed in the Peruvian Andes around the time the Nazca Lines were created, which has lead to theories concerning a call in desperation to their gods for life-giving water.
Also some animals in the murals, such as monkeys, are found closer to jungle environments, which has linked the origin of the lines to possibly the visual results of "shaman flying"; a known practice still used today by some Amazonian communities involving the consumption of natural hallucinogenic substances by local jungle witchdoctors.
Causing colourful hallucinations and occasionally extended trances, shamans are assumed to be making direct contact with their gods in spirit form, which coupled with the desperate need for water has provided science with a solid origin theory behind the mysterious Nazca Lines; although actual evidence may possibly never be available to verify such claims, unless of course the aliens DO finally land there again :)
