Been down a rabbit hole on this for the past few weeks and I keep hitting the same name - David Johnson, the hydrologist who mapped the lines against underground aquifers back in the late 90s. His findings were genuinely compelling - he claimed a significant percentage of the lines pointed directly toward subterranean water sources.
What I can't work out is whether this was ever properly peer-reviewed or whether it's fallen into that grey zone of ". Interesting but unverified." The Peruvian government apparently took it seriously enough to fund further investigation, but I can't find solid follow-up literature anywhere.
A few things I'm specifically curious about:
Has anyone cross-referenced Johnson's aquifer maps with the more recent LiDAR survey data from the 2018-2020 Yamagata University project?, The trapezoid shapes in particular - were those consistently aligned with water sources or only the linear sections?, Is there any ethnographic evidence from surviving Andean traditions that actually connects the geoglyphs to water ritual or agriculture?
The irrigation hypothesis doesn't necessarily replace the ceremonial interpretation - the two could be completely complementary. Sacred landscapes tied to water sources make obvious anthropological sense.
What bothers me is how quickly the mainstream archaeology community seems to dismiss practical explanations in favour of purely symbolic ones. It feels like the same pattern we see repeatedly with anomalous ancient sites.
Anyone here done deeper reading on this, or been to Nazca themselves? Would be particularly interested if anyone's spoken to researchers working on the ground there currently.