A New Discovery in the Nasca Lines

1 The Nasca Lines are straight lines and figures/drawn on the Nasca Pampa in Peru.// Many of the figures are geometric patterns and animals/such as circles, triangles, hummingbirds, and monkeys.// The sizes of the Nasca Lines vary/from a few meters/to over 100 meters.// It is thought/that some of the oldest drawings were created/more than 2,000 years ago.// About 1,000 drawings had been found/in previous surveys of the area.// Recently,/580 straight lines and 190 figures/were newly discovered.//

2 These discoveries have been made/by a Japanese research team/led by Professor Sakai Masato.// He is an anthropologist/studying the Andean Civilization.// He aims to make a map/that overviews all the Nasca Lines.// Because the civilization had no writing system,/he expects to find more/about the features of the civilization/by making the map.// He also wants to contribute to the protection/of the Nasca Lines/from land development.//

3 At the beginning of the project,/the research team faced some difficulties.// One of them was to obtain high-quality photos/of the Nasca Pampa/taken from the sky.// Those photos were necessary to identify new drawings/on the vast land.// The team tried to buy them/from a national organization in Peru,/but the cost was too high.// Struggling to find a solution,/the team found a generous Japanese company/which provided the high-quality photos/for free.//

4 The next challenge was to identify drawings/by closely examining the photos.// This time-consuming task was done/not only by the researchers/but also by Japanese student volunteers.// Once something like a drawing was found,/the research team went to the site/and physically checked the drawing.// Such a process was slow and labor-intensive.//

5 The team wanted to speed up the process/and found/that AI, or artificial intelligence,/could help them examine the photos/of the Nasca Pampa.// If humans examined them,/it would take more than ten years.// However,/AI can process them/far more quickly.// AI learns the parts of the Nasca Lines/and looks for possible locations/of new drawings.// Consequently,/AI succeeded in detecting a human-like figure/that was not spotted by anyone/in the team.//

6 Professor Sakai says,/“I didn’t think/AI was almighty,/but it was a big surprise.”// He continues,/“Studying the Nasca Lines with AI technology/shows us/that AI can contribute/to a wide variety of research fields,/which in turn will help improve our society.”//