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Japanese Researchers Use AI to Uncover Mysterious Symbols in Peruvian Desert

Researchers have found geoglyphs on the Peru surface, which are prehispanic by origin.

PUBLISHED OCT 1, 2024

Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Pixabay

Artificial Intelligence has started helping archaeological research, making some processes more efficient and fast-paced. Japanese scientists used AI to discover hundreds of ancient land artworks in Peru that they may have missed with conventional methods, Newsweek reported.

Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV

Researchers have found geoglyphs on the Peru surface, which are prehispanic by origin. Geoglyphs are defined as motifs drawn on the ground with the help of stones or gravel. These figures have been located all across the Nazca desert region in southern Peru.

Field surveys of the area began in the 1940s and continue to this day. Experts had identified close to 430 figurative geoglyphs, featuring various figures like animal and humanoid motifs, before the research operation undertaken by the Faculty of Humanities and SociaResal Sciences at Yamagata University in Japan, nearly doubled the count.

A team of researchers led by Masato Sakai of Yamagata University applied AI-assisted image analysis to capture high-resolution photographs of the Nazca region, Newsweek reported. This method led to the discovery of an additional 303 geoglyphs, just in six months. The AI technology was given available artworks to analyze and sent to detect similar figures in the area. Their findings were published in PNAS.

The number of discovered geoglyphs was close to double because the AI technology proved efficient in locating the smaller "relief-type" geoglyphs, which are hard to detect on the surface of Peru, Newsweek reported. "This paper demonstrates how AI accelerates discoveries in archaeology, even in a region as well known as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site of Nazca," the authors wrote in the study.

Geoglyphs are analyzed to understand the culture and beliefs of the civilization that created them. The earliest figures date back to more than 2,000 years. These ancient artworks played a huge part in getting the place designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.