
Archaeologists have discovered more than 50 mysterious new 'Nazca lines' in Peru, which were constructed nearly 2,000 years ago by ancient inhabitants who painstakingly arranged pebbles into massive shapes.

Some are hundreds of years older than the most famous Nazca lines previously discovered.

The researchers learned that while some of the geoglyphs were produced by Nazca people, others date back to a time before they lived in the region where the drawings can be found.

The Nazca people lived in the area from 200 to 700 CE. Some of the designs are believed to be created instead by the Topará and Paracas people.

Dozens of previously unnoticed Nazca lines have been discovered in Peru. Researchers captured images of the depictions using lightweight drones

The new discovery changes what researchers previously believed about the mysterious designs, archaeologist Johny Isla told National Geographic.

Isla, who works at the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, said: 'This means that it is a tradition of over a thousand years that precedes the famous geoglyphs of the Nazca culture, which opens the door to new hypotheses about its function and meaning.

Researchers have been puzzled by Nazca lines for decades. They were created by people who rearranged red pebbles in the desert.

The historic designs are thought to date back to people living in Peru from 500 BCE to 200 CE

The designs were created by people rearranging red pebbles in the desert to create certain symbols, some of which are complex

Geoglyphs span large land tracts located between the towns of Palpa and Nazca.

Some geoglyphs depict animals, objects or compact shapes; others are only simplistic lines.

Often, the composition of a geoglyph cannot be fully realized at ground level. Only when one is high enough in the air can they discern the shapes of some of the designs.

For this reason the intricacies of the designs were not fully realized until airplanes were invented and the artwork was seen from the sky.

Earlier designs were commonly created on hillsides and could be viewed from higher elevations on land. These earlier designs also included depictions of humans.

The newly discovered Nazca lines are on land between the towns of Palpa and Nazca in Peru. The land is protected by UNESCO

Some Nazca lines depict animals. The newly discovered designs include depictions of warriors; the drawings give researchers an insight into cultures that thrived in the area hundreds of years ago

Most of the newly discovered designs are of warriors and they are centuries older than other Nazca lines.

Isla stressed that the new discovery adds to what archaeologists previously knew about Peruvian culture.

In 2014, a Greenpeace protest damaged the area where geoglyphs are found - even though the land is protected by UNESCO.

After that, Isla's team received financial aid from the US to help protect the historic artwork, Science Alert reported.

Isla teamed up with archaeology professor Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, National Geographic Explorer and archaeologist Sarah Parcak to look for new designs.

Nazca lines were not completely understood until the invention of airplanes because they cannot be fully realized from any point on land

WHAT ARE PERU'S MYSTERIOUS 'NAZCA LINES'? Geoglyphs span large land tracts located between the towns of Palpa and Nazca. Some geoglyphs depict animals, objects or compact shapes; others are only simplistic lines. The Nazca people lived in the area from 200 to 700 CE. Some of the designs are believed to be created instead by the Topará and Paracas people. Most of the lines are formed by a shallow trench with a depth of between four inches (10cm) and six inches (15cm), made by removing the reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles that cover the surface of the Nazca desert and exposing the light-colored earth beneath. This sublayer contains high amounts of lime which has hardened to form a protective layer that shields the lines from winds and prevents erosion. An aerial view of a spiral-tailed monkey figure in Peru's mysterious Nazca Lines, located some 240 miles south of Lima. No one knows why the Pre-Inca Nazca culture made the figures and lines, some of them miles long Paul Kosok, from Long Island University, is credited as the first scholar to seriously study the Nazca Lines. He discovered that the lines converged at the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Along with Maria Reiche, a German mathematician and archaeologist, Kosok proposed the figures were markers on the horizon to show where the sun and other celestial bodies rose. Source: UNESCO Advertisement

The researchers studied images of the land taken by drones and relied on photography and 3D scans to search for new geoglyphs.

These technologies revealed to them dozens of previously undiscovered geoglyphs that had gone unnoticed.

Erosion and degradation had taken a toll on the Nazca lines and hidden them, but images from lightweight drones brought them to light.

The glyphs that were just recently discovered have not yet been registered with the government in Peru, but they are in a territory protected by UNESCO.

Satellite data can be used to protect the glyphs from human-caused sensations, which are among the largest threats to the designs.