MYSTERIOUS patterns adorn the hills of Chile’s Atacama desert. Watching over the plains below are giant figures of people and animals carved out of the land by prehistoric artists. Some say they are signposts, etched by nomads to guide passing llama caravans safely through the driest region of the world. Others have gone so far as to say they were drawn to communicate with aliens.
There is still intense debate about exactly who made these so-called geoglyphs, and when and why they were drawn. “Geoglyphs are notoriously difficult to date,” says Ran Boytner of the University of California, Los Angeles,…
