AI-accelerated Nazca survey nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs
Problem
Finding figurative Nazca geoglyphs was extremely slow: only 430 were discovered over nearly a century, and small relief-type ones are hard to see.
Why it matters
Geoglyphs reveal ancient Nazca culture, and manual survey of a UNESCO World Heritage site is slow and error-prone.
What the AI did
An AI system was deployed across the entire Nazca region to detect candidate geoglyphs, which were then confirmed by field survey, specialising in hard-to-discern relief-type geoglyphs.
Results
303 new figurative geoglyphs discovered in 6 months of field survey, nearly doubling the known total; relief-type motifs 81.6% human-related, average 43 m from ancient trails.
Impact
The AI-guided survey nearly doubled known figurative geoglyphs and enabled new analysis of their motifs and distribution.
Record
| Venue | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
|---|---|
| Published | 2024 |
| Work type | article |
| Authors | Masato Sakai, Akihisa Sakurai, Siyuan Lu, J. Francisco Sibón Olano, Conrad M Albrecht, Hendrik F. Hamann, Marcus Freitag |
| Citations | 18 (OpenAlex, at import time) |
| References | 31 |
| Model or method | not stated in source |
| Organization | not stated in source |
| Primary source | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2407652121 |
| Open access | hybrid |
| Keywords | Nazca geoglyphs, AI survey, remote detection, archaeology, UNESCO, relief-type figures |
Importance rating
real but narrower advance
Nearly doubled known figurative geoglyphs at a UNESCO site; major advance for Nazca archaeology but a narrow heritage domain, not broad societal scale.