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The New Nazca Lines (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Gillian Woodward.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And I'm Roger Basek. Spotlight Advanced uses a special English
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: no matter where in the world they live.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You are flying over the Nasca Desert in Peru. The
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: same flat, red earth stretches out in all directions until
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it is broken by lines. These white marks in the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: earth begin to connect into lines, making shapes, birds, insects,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and strange men with knives. Each of these shapes is
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: many kilometers long.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: These are the Nazca lines. The mystery of these huge
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: shapes in the desert floor has long puzzled experts. Who
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: or what made them? What purpose do they serve? Why
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: would an ancient people make something that can only be
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: seen best from the air. Today's Spotlight Advanced is on
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the mystery left behind by these desert shapes.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: There are many theories about who created the Nasca lines.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Some even say that these lines are evidence of foreign
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: beings visiting our planet floating in the sky. These beings
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: must have cut the lines in the desert floor.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: With modern technology, the reality is at once much more
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: common and much more unbelievable. Experts believe that the Nasca
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: people created these lines between five hundred BC and five
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: hundred AD. Though we know little about the Nasca people,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the imagery in the lines is simil to those found
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: in Nasca art. These cultured desert dwellers often painted animals
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: such as killer whales, hummingbirds, and monkeys on their pottery.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: They wove similar shapes on their blankets and clothing.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Archaeologists, those scientists who study ancient cultures, have an important question.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: How the Nascar could cut the lines. Some of the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: lines run on for many kilometers without bending. This would
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: be a grand achievement today, but many of the shapes
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in the Nazca desert are nearly two thousand years old.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: There are no mountains nearby to see the shapes from above.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Some experts believe that the Nazca may have used early
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: hot air balloons to help them. Julian Knott was a
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: British balloonist. He once made a small balloon using a
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: fire and cloth like the Nasca made. After a short flight,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: he said, I.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Do not see any evidence that the Nazca culture did fly,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: but they could have, and so could the ancient Egyptians,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the Romans the vikings. Any culture with just a device
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: to make cloth, and with fire you can fly.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Theories like knots are interesting, but the truth may be
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: much simpler. The NASCAR people could have made a straight
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: line by tying a piece of rope between two posts.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Cutting the lines in the earth was not difficult. The
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Nascar Desert's red soil is only a few centimeters deep.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Beneath it is white colored rock. The Nazca would only
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: have needed to remove a little earth to expose the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: differently colored earth below. With little to no wind in
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: this desert, these shapes remained untouched.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Whilst some experts believe they know how the Nascar made
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: these lines, they do not know why. It is one
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: mystery for which we may never know the answer. Why
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: make such large shapes if you will never see them fully?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Why start such a project with no immediate visible purpose.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: There have been many theories since people first rediscovered the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: lines in nineteen twenty seven. Some think that the lines
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: held some religious purpose. Maybe the shapes were praised these
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: people offered to their gods. Early discoverers thought they could
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: have been a way to mark the stars. Maybe these
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: shapes were ways of judging the years maybe they helped
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: people find water in a land with very little.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Recent discoveries have made these theories more complex. Masato Sakai
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: is a researcher at Yamagata University. In twenty two twenty four,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: he and his team scanned images of the Nasca Desert
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: using artificial intelligence, or AI. They designed this special program
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: to find shapes like the Nasca Lines. Before this study,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: it took experts one hundred years to find four hundred
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and thirty shapes. The AI program found three hundred and
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: three more in just six months. Sakai said the traditional
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: method of study was identifying these shapes from high resolution
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: images of this huge area.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: This was slow it risked missing some of them.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Many of these new lines were much smaller than other
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: shapes in the Nascar Desert. They showed strange pictures like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: fish holding knives. Several show the heads of dead enemies.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Before this find, the best theory that the lines were
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: places where the Nascar people performed ceremonies. They performed these
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: religious services to ask their gods for rain.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: The new shapes do not disprove this theory, but they
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: do invite more mystery into the story of these ancient
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: shapes in the desert. Experts have identified many of the
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: new animals drawn in the desert. Some come from the
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Amazon rainforest, many hundreds of kilometers away. These animals were
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: somehow significant to the Nascar people. These may have symbolized
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: growth or farming, but it is difficult to know why
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the Nascar drew animals from so far away.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Some lines may have been for directions to water. Some
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lines may have been for watching the stars, but others
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: may have been markers of important events. The larger shapes
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: would have required many people to make, but smaller ones
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: would not. Maybe these lines were training for larger shapes.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe some were made by a single person trying to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: make a permanent mark on the world.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Looking to other cultures may help us understand the Parakas.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: People lived in the same area as the Nazca. These
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: people also drew lines, but they lived several hundreds of
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: years earlier. The Parakas also drew lines in the earth,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: but these lines were usually on hillsides a person could
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: see them from the ground from villages where they lived.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: These smaller shapes had less precise lines. It was probably
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: important that these shapes be seen by the people who
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: drew them, but the Nazca people did not seem to
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: care if they could see what they made. Instead, these
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: lines were for the sky.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Whatever these were for, the NASCAR lines represent an important
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: part of human art and history. What they meant to
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the people that made them remains mysterious, but today we
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: recognize them as important markers of what humans are able
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to do. In nineteen ninety four, UNESCO marked the lines
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: as a World Heritage Site. This makes sure these sites
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: are protected. It directs more care because of the site's
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: importance for everyone in the world.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Why do you think the NASCAR dru their lines? Do
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: you have a favorite theory? You can leave a comment
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Blue Sky,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and x. You can also get our programs delivered directly
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Spotlight English app.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: was mitchyo Osaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: called the New Nazca Lines.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: partlet program. Goodbye,