NOVA

(dramatic music) The Nasca were a social group that developed along the southern coast. This territory is pretty arid because there's no water for most of the year. Their dwellings were along valleys, which are really small oases in the middle of the desert. (gentle music) -

Narrator

Archeologists named the ancient group of farmers and fishermen who once lived here, the Nasca, after the local river valley. They used the surrounding desert plateaus as a canvas for drawing giant geoglyphs. The Nasca covered these planes with geoglyphs and turned this desert into a space which was inhabited, dynamic, social and vibrant through time. (dramatic music) To identify and categorize these geoglyphs, we take a stylistic approach. We compare them with ceramics and textiles. -

Narrator

They find similar motifs. But not from the Nasca period. These geoglyphs date to the year, 200 or 300 BCE. Which means that they were made before the famous Nasca geoglyphs. -

Narrator

The hillside geoglyphs were created earlier than the Nasca are thought to have existed. So who was making geoglyphs before the Nasca? And why? (dramatic music) In the 1920s, Julio Cesar Tello, the first Peruvian archeologist, found 429 mummies wrapped in extraordinary textiles in an ancient burial ground in the Paracas Peninsula. So archeologists called the ancient people the Paracas. The funerary bundles are stored in Lima in the National Museum of Archeology, Anthropology and History of Peru. (gentle music) The fabrics the mummies were wrapped in revealed the extraordinary skill and artistry of the Paracas. And the images and symbols provide insight into their worldview. There are shamans in trances, deities and severed heads. One of the most iconic Paracas textiles has only recently arrived at the museum. (speaking foreign language) In the 1930s, after Julio Tello's excavations in the Paracas Peninsula, there was a lot of looting and some pieces, this one among them, were taken out of the country. It ended up in Sweden. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

This was the first time archeologist Delia Aponte has been able to examine the 2000 year old mantel. I'm happy. I've always wanted to see this piece. I'm surprised by the use of color. For the Paracas, colors have meaning and the way they organize them is important. It's part of their identity. There is a symbolism we haven't deciphered yet but which is definitely there. (gentle music) -

Narrator

The Paracas imbued their funerary textiles with meaning and Delia is particularly interested in their symbolism. Here we have a toad, associated with humidity and agriculture. A few plants are sprouting from its back. Here, there is a condor. Hummingbirds drinking from a flower. A being in the form of a human. -

Narrator

The imagery, related to animals and edible plants throughout the seasons, suggests that the Paracas textile is a symbolic representation of the agricultural cycle. I think this is a masterpiece. The pinnacle of 900 years of this society's development. -

Narrator

Many of the Paracas images strongly resemble the newly identified hillside geoglyphs found in the Nasca region. It suggests the desert figures were created by the Paracas. (gentle music) So what happened to the Paracas? Bioarcheologist and forensic anthropologist Elsa Tomasto Cagigao looked to DNA for an answer. And got a surprise. There is a DNA type which is specifically inherited from the mother, and it's very easy to classify. In Native American populations,

there are only four lineages

A, B, C, D. And when I did that test, for research purposes, it turned out I matched the D lineage most common among the Paracas. -

Narrator

there are only four lineages

DNA analysis of human remains dating from 800 BCE to the year 800 helps explain what became of the Paracas. In the Palpa and Nasca area, it is very difficult to differentiate biologically between the Paracas and the Nasca. They are genetically very similar. Yes, we find cultural differences, which makes sense, as the centuries go by, people change in the way they behave. -

Narrator

there are only four lineages

The research suggests that, sometime before the year 100, the culture of the people living in the region shifted and the Paracas became the Nasca. And while the styles changed, the Nasca continued the Paracas line making traditions.