Researchers said that the new rock lines discovered in Peru predate the famous Nazca Lines by centuries and it is likely that this place was once the site for ancient fairs.
According to researchers, the lines were created by people of the Paracas, a civilization that arose around 800 B.C. in what is now Peru. The Paracas culture existed before the Nazca culture, which was present around 100 B.C. The Nazca people are famous for their fantastic geoglyphs, or rock lines, which are built in the shapes of monkeys, birds and other animals.
Charles Stanish, the director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who reported the new find May 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that the new lines date to around 300 B.C., which means that they are at least 300 years older than the oldest Nazca lines.
"They used the lines in a different way than the Nazca," Stanish told Live Science. "They basically created these areas of highly ritualized processions and activities that were not settled permanently," he added.
Stanish said that the close! st European analog would be the medieval fairs which were attended by people from far and wide.
The lines were discovered by Stanish and his team in the Chinca Valley, which is about 125 miles south of Lima, Peru. Stanish said that some lines are set out to frame pyramid structures. These lines are parallel and appear to point directly at pyramids. "I don't think people needed the signposts, but it was more kind of a ritualized thing, where you come down and everything's prepared," he said.
Source : http://www.delhidailynews.com/news/Rock-lines-found-in-Peru-marked-way-to-ancient-fairs-1399433203/
