The Nazca people lived on the edge of the desert in southern Peru. Their culture thrived between around 200 BC and 750 AD. They are known to have traded with the Moche people farther north. They were expert craftworkers and produced beautiful pottery and textiles. They also constructed a system of underground aqueducts, called puquios, to bring fresh water from the mountains to their farmland and settlements. The Nazca are, however, best known for the amazing lines and shapes they carved in the desert.

Nazca lines

The Nazca people carved hundreds of lines in the desert’s sandy surface, and a series of strange pictures, including images of birds, monkeys and spiders. They can be seen properly only from the air. Why the Nazca people made these lines and pictures—long before planes were invented—remains a mystery. No one knows what the Nazca pictures mean, but they may have played a part in a religious ritual.

The fall of the Nazca

From 500 AD, the Nazca civilization started to decline. By 750 it had vanished. A severe worldwide cooling that occurred in 536 AD, possibly caused by a major volcanic eruption in the tropics, may have led to prolonged drought in the region. It is possible, too, that a series of El Niños (reversals of ocean currents that happen from time to time, and have a dramatic effect on local weather) triggered destructive flooding. The Nazca people would have made the effects of the floods far worse by cutting down huarango trees to make room for their crops of maize, squash, sweet potato and cotton. The trees—their long roots reach down to the water table deep underground—prevent soil erosion. With fewer trees to bind the soil, the floodwaters would have washed it away.

​​​​​​​Hit by both severe drought and disastrous flooding, farmers would have been unable to grow crops from one year to the next. This probably caused the Nazca civilization to collapse.