142 The Nazca
Learning Objective
- Explain the culture, religion, agriculture, and decline of the Nazca civilization
Key Points
- Early Nazca society was made up of local chiefdoms and regional centers of power centered around the ritual site of Cahuachi.
- The Nazca are known for their Nazca Lines—geometric shapes, lines, and animal figures carved into the desert floor.
- Like the Moche, the Nazca decline was likely due to environmental changes.
Terms
Nazca Lines
A series of geometric shapes, miles of lines, and large drawings of animal figures created by the Nazca culture.
shamans
Spiritual practitioners that reach altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world for healing and divination purposes.
Trephination
This primitive surgery removed a piece of bone from the skull, while the person was still alive, to allow drainage after a head injury.
The Nazca (or Nasca) lived near the arid southern coast of Peru from 100 BCE to 800 CE. Early Nazca society was made up of local chiefdoms and regional centers of power centered around Cahuachi, a non-urban ceremonial site of earthwork mounds and plazas. These pyramid-like structures and plazas, situated in the lower part of the Nazca Valley, served as important spaces for fertility and agricultural rituals. People from across the Nazca region most likely gathered in Cahuachi during specific times of the year to feast and make offerings.
The Nazca developed underground aqueducts, named puquios, to sustain cities and agriculture in this arid climate. Many of them still function today. They also created complex textiles and ceramics reflecting their agricultural and sacrificial traditions.
Society and Religion
Likely related to the arid and extreme nature of the environment, Nazca religious beliefs were based upon agriculture and fertility. Much of Nazca art depicts powerful nature gods, such as the mythical killer whale, the harvesters, the mythical spotted cat, the hummingbird, and the serpentine entity. As in the contemporary Moche culture based in northwest Peru, shamans apparently used hallucinogenic drugs, such as extractions from the San Pedro cactus, to induce visions during ceremonies.
Nazca Lines
The geoglyphs of Nazca, or “Nazca Lines,” are a series of geometric shapes, extended lines that run for miles, and large drawings of animal figures (some as large as a football field) constructed on the desert floor in the Nazca region. A large number of people over an extended period of time could have constructed the lines.
Researchers have demonstrated techniques to explore how this was done. By extending a rope between two posts and removing the red pebbles on the desert surface along the rope, the lines could have been constructed. The contrast of the red desert pebbles and the lighter earth beneath would make the lines visible from a high altitude. Due to the simplistic construction of the geoglyphs,