The Sad Case of the Nazca People

As if to prove Jared Diamond correct (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed), the Nazca people of southern Peru, have the joined the dubious ranks of peoples that have brought about their own destruction by trashing their environment. Like the Eastern Island people, they cut down all their trees, an act which led to their eventual starvation.

DiscoveryNews (Nov. 2, 2009) reports on a study published in the Latin American Antiquity, that "The Nazca caused their own collapse when they cleared their forests in order to make way for agriculture, thus exposing the landscape to wind and flood erosion...."

These people are best known for those large drawings animals and birds in the Peruvian desert. The ones that are best seen from the air.

They also apparently made "sophisticated ceramics and textiles and amassed one of South America's largest collection of human trophy heads."


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DiscoveryNews

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Thank you Garp, my buddy at LibraryThing, for bringing this article to may attention.