In one of the driest places on Earth where survival is a struggle for most living creatures, an unexpected sport is allegedly damaging art carved on the desert’s slopes more than 1,000 years ago.
In the northern Tarapacá region of the Chilean Atacama Desert, off-road vehicles threaten to erase part of the ancient history contained in the Alto Barranco geoglyphs. Images and drone videos from a photogrammetric survey conducted by the Atacama Desert Foundation, released this month on Instagram, document extensive off-road tire track marks cutting through massive figures, obscuring historical documentation contained in the carvings.
“We have known about the damage to this site for several years. But what we didn’t have was the photogrammetry and drone footage,” archaeologist Gonzálo Pimentel, president of Atacama Desert Foundation, told Hyperallergic. “The images are eloquent on their own.”
In a scaled image provided to Hyperallergic, a significant portion of a geoglyph spanning about 98 feet (30 meters) diagonally is severed by tire marks. Nearby, a nearly 49-foot (15-meter) downhill-pointing arrow remains intact. In a wider shot, the tire tracks appear to have exposed a layer of bright-colored sand, comparable to the lightest parts of the landmarks.
“Although I have seen many cases of damaged geoglyphs, this is perhaps the most shocking,” Pimentel said.
The damage, the foundation claims, comes from motorcycles and 4×4 vehicles. Off- and on-road riding is a popular attraction of the desert, mentioned in travel blogs and as part of the Atacama Rally road race competition. One blog advises that off the desert’s main roads, motorcyclists can find “reasonable quality gravel tracks.”
The Atacama Rally denied any involvement in the damage, according to a New York Times report.
The carvings are intimately linked with llama-powered caravan routes that originated over 3,000 years ago, once an artery between the highlands and the South American West Coast, according to Pimentel.
There are hundreds of sites and thousands of figures along these routes, which are historical documentation of life in the Atacama, the archaeologist said. Some figures put the estimate for the number of Atacama geoglyphs at 5,000.
Chile’s geoglyphs — like their more famous Peruvian counterparts, the Nazca Lines — are largely imperceptible at ground level and often only visible at high altitudes. Scientists believe these kinds of ancient geoglyphs were created by removing rocks and soil to expose bright, unoxidized sand beneath. The desert climate prevents erosion over time. Just how these figures were conceived, before desert inhabitants could conceptualize a birds-eye view, remains up for debate and has drawn conspiracy theories as far-fetched as alien intervention.
Pimentel said that although the figures could be restored, the severity of the damage indicates a critical lack of measures in place to protect and restore the historic art, likely rendering repair nearly impossible.
“I believe this will not only continue to occur but will unfortunately happen more frequently,” Pimentel said.