NOVA

-

Narrator

Candy Hurtado is an ethnomusicologist from Jauja, in the Highlands east of Lima. (dramatic music) She's studying rituals and has come to Nazca to record the water festival. In the (speaking in foreign language) worldview, we understand that time is not linear, but that it is cyclical, so that we are always through ritual connecting with the past, the present, and the future. We are connected to our ancestors.

We are connected to the people that come after us in a very real way, as well as to the environment. The environment is also considered our ancestors. (dramatic music) (car engines humming) -

Narrator

Peruvian archeologists studying the environment to piece together the Nazca story have made surprising discoveries. Using drone images, they've identified a different type of geoglyph not on the flat desert plateaus, but on the hillsides. (man speaking in foreign language) Johny Isla and his team are restoring his latest discovery, a very faded geoglyph. (man speaking in foreign language) Years of erosion have damaged the geoglyph.

Johnny's team moves stone after stone by hand to re-expose the lighter layer below. It's a painstaking process. (man speaking in foreign language) -

Interpreter

When we realized that on the hillside there were other figures, other geoglyphs, we realized we have to change the way we thought and look to the hillside where we didn't think there were any drones. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

The team has revealed the outline of a group of people walking, but it needs more work. (man speaking in foreign language) (dramatic music) The desert hillsides have long been overlooked but now there is newfound interest in them. (dramatic music) -

Interpreter

It's really one of the most striking finds of recent times. It's the mountain cat, the Pampas cat. An animal in danger of extinction. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

Almost 10,000 miles away in Yamagata, Japan, archeologist Masato Sakai studies drone footage from the Nazca desert. He's turned to a high tech method of searching for geoglyphs, artificial intelligence. (dramatic music) (man speaking in foreign language) -

Interpreter

At the beginning we were looking at the northern Nazca planes where hummingbirds, monkeys and other famous geoglyphs are concentrated. We let AI learn from these famous geoglyphs and other data from this area. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

By analyzing aerial images, computer algorithms can spot the cleared surfaces that form the figures. Once the AI knows what to look for it begins scanning the desert for patterns that appear human made. (dramatic music) The software homes in on a very faint shape. (dramatic music) (man speaking in foreign language) -

Interpreter

We discovered it is a geoglyph of a person holding a club in the right hand. (dramatic music)