The Cat’s Out of the Bag: Newly Discovered Feline Geoglyph in Peru

Figure 1: Feline Geoglyph (Source: Johny Isla, Peru's Ministry of Culture)

 

Today’s blog post is a long overdue continuation of a topic briefly discussed in this post: the Nasca Lines, or the large scale geoglyphs produced on the hillsides and desert floor throughout southern Peru.  A newly discovered geoglyph of a feline has perplexed archaeologists, which will be discussed further herein.

 

The large scale geoglyphs known as the Nasca Lines were created by the Nasca culture.  The Nasca (100 B.C. to A.D. 700) developed from the preceding Paracas culture. Both cultural groups resided in the vast and dry Atacama Desert (of southern Peru), but the Nasca developed more advanced cultural developments compared to their predecessors.  The Nasca are best known for their polychrome pottery, which were black designs on red or white slips.  Various natural (plants and animals) and mythical entities were depicted on their pottery, and many of these latter designs were also prominent on their elaborate textiles.  The Nasca were accomplished agriculturalists who constructed intricate irrigation canals to sustain their agricultural exploits.  This is an important accomplishment as the Atacama Desert was and continues to be the world’s driest desert.  The Nasca resided in various residential centers on the flanks of the valley walls/hills, and they were organized as several chiefdoms that shared cultural characteristics in common.  This also enabled them to form alliances to work together as necessary.

 

The Nasca are popularly known for their geoglyphs, which received their namesake from their creators (the Nasca).  These were created by teams of individuals who would scape away the topsoil in the form of specific designs, revealing the lighter colored soil underneath in the form of the intended illustration.  These included geometric designs and various animals (e.g., monkeys, birds, insects, marine mammals, humans, etc.).  It is unclear what the specific purpose of these geoglyphs were, but there are several hypotheses, which include their use in rituals, as large scale maps to sacred sites, as a calendar, or potentially mapping underground waterways.  What is clear is that their creation required cooperation and leadership given the time and effort required to create the hundreds of currently identified geoglyphs.

 

New geoglyphs are being discovered often.  In 2020 a large feline geoglyph (Figure 1) was discovered as archaeologists were repairing an area where the public and scholars could view previously identified geoglyphs.  This geoglyph had previously been overlooked due to dirt and debris obscuring it.  Peru’s Ministry of Culture directed the feline geoglyph’s restoration, which is on a hillside.  The 121 foot long geoglyph has been minimally studied, and it is actually dated to the Paracas culture, not the Nasca.  This means that the Paracas may have been creating their own geoglyphs and influenced the later Nasca further than currently believed.  It will be interesting to see what comes next as further study of this feline geoglyph continues.

 

References

Leonard, B. (2021, January/February). Cat's Eye View. Archaeology Magazine, p. 1.

Mardon, A., Singh, J., Schuler, M., Bilal, H., Jean-Marie, N., George, M. E., . . . Raza, N. (2021). The Nazca Lines. Edmonton: Golden Meteorite Press.

Moseley, M. E. (1993). The Incas and Their Ancestors. New York: Thames and Hudson, Ltd.

Proulx, D. A. (2001). Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society. In E. P. Benson, & A. G. Cook, Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru (pp. 119-136). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Vaughn, K. (2005). Household Approaches to Ethnicity on the South Coast of Peru: The Domestic Architecture of Early Nasca Society. In R. M. Reycraft, Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes (pp. 86-103). Los Angeles: University of California.