The landing strip theory never really held up once you look at the actual soil composition and load-bearing capacity of the pampa. No aircraft - ancient or otherwise - is setting down on that substrate without sinking straight in. That part I think we can put to bed.
What I find more interesting is that the theory keeps getting revived every few years because people cant quite accept the purely ritualistic explanations either. And honestly fair enough. The scale of some of those geoglyphs is genuinely hard to reconcile with "they walked in procession along them." You dont create a 300-metre spider figure just to walk a path you cant even see from ground level.
My own thinking after years looking at this stuff leans toward astronomical calendaring combined with water source mapping, which Maria Reiche spent decades documenting and still doesnt get the credit it deserves. The lines as a kind of sacred landscape interface rather than anything to do with physical craft landing.
But curious what others here make of the newer LIDAR findings - theres been some fairly significant undiscovered geoglyphs turning up that might reframe the whole question of purpose and scale.
