AVIAN SUBJECTS IDENTIFIED IN NAZCA GEOGLYPHS: PART TWO – THE OTHERS!

Last week I began a two-report on a recent paper from the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports titled “Identifying the Bird Figures of the Nasca Pampas: An Ornithological Perspective” by Masaki Eda, Takeshi Yamasaki and Masato Sakai. Now we will look at some more of their conclusions.

BG-4c, Fig. 4c, identified as a parrot

hatchling. Internet, Public Domain.

Parrot hatchling,

abc.net.au.

“Geoglyph BG-4c (Fig. 4c) was listed as a duck (Lumbreras, 2000). The bill is short and thick, and almost as thick as the head. There is a raised portion on the forehead and an irregular circle at the center of the body trunk. If this feature represents a wing, the birds’ upper limbs are quite short. One short leg is recognizable; it is attached to a wide foot with three toes. The tail is short and equal in length to the bill. The small, wing-like feature of the geoglyph suggests that the bird is a flightless bird or a hatchling. When we assume that the bird was standing or walking, we considered that it may represent a precocial species that is able to stand and walk soon after hatching. Ducks (Anatinae, Anatidae) have bills much thinner than the bill depicted in the geoglyph. Ratites have short wings, although their long legs are completely different from the legs in the geoglyph. Assuming the bird is lying (down), it would be a hatchling of the altricial
species. The short and thick bill, rump-like feature on the forehead, short wings, legs, and tails are recognizable in parrot (Psittacidae) hatchlings (personal communications with Dr. Scott Echols). Although exclusive studies involving parrot hatchlings are required to make this assertion, the geoglyph appears to depict one of these birds.” (Masaki et. al. 2019:4)

 BG-5b, Aveni's Frigate Bird,

Identified by Masaki et.al. as a pelican.

Illustration from Aveni, Fig. 8a, p. 31.

BG-5b, Fig. 5b, Identified as a pelican,

Masaki et. al., 2019,

used with permission.

Displaying frigate bird,

(fregata-magnificens),

Photograph oceanlight.com

- Public Domain. 

Peruvian pelican, resting with

head and neck down,

(note small feather crest)

Illustration otlibrary.com

- Public Domain.

Their most controversial identifications is the image that they list as BG-5b.

“The crest depicted in the geoglyph (BG-5b) appears in a wide range of taxonomic groups. In Peru, it is found in pelicans, guans and curassows (Cracidae), hawks and eagles (Accipitridae), antbirds (hamnophilidae), and flycatchers (Muscicapidae). Among these birds, only pelicans have long, hooked bills. Assuming that the protruding portion under the head represents the breast, this geoglyph closely resembles a pelican resting on a reef.” (Masaki et. al. 2019:4)

“Geoglyph BG-5b was listed as a guano bird by Lumbreras (2000), but was also identified as a frigatebird exhibiting display behavior based on the presence of a long, hooked bill and the pouch-like throat feature under the bill (Aveni 2000). In Peru and other South American countries, the term “guano bird” is not taxonomically specific, but includes pelicans (Pelecanidae), boobies (Sulidae), and cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae); these birds breed on islands and produce guano, which is a substance composed of deposited excrement and bird carcasses and used as fertilizer [for its nitrates which were also valuable in the production of black gunpowder]. The geoglyph depicts the head and neck or protruding breast of a bird seen from the side. It is characterized by a distinctive crest and an extremely long bill that is hooked at the tip.” (Masaki et. al. 2019:4)

Although Aveni (2000:31) identified this as a displaying frigate bird (and it certainly has the outline of the head and breast of a displaying frigate bird) the frigate bird does not possess the crest shown on the head of the geoglyph. Masaki et. al. have concluded that this is most likely a pelican. Indeed, I can imagine that a pelican with its head and neck tucked back and its breast protruding could look a lot like that. None of the pelican pictures I have seen showed it with such a prominent crest, but there were raised feathers in many of them that could be called a crest.

BG-5c, Fig. 5c, identified as a flying

pelican by Masaki et. al. Internet

photograph, Public domain.

Flying Pelican, BG-5c, Fig. 5c,

Illustration Masaki et. al.

Used by permission.

Flying pelican, Internet

photograph, Public domain.

The next example is also listed as a pelican. “BG-5c was listed as a bird (Lumbreras 2000); the geoglyph depicts a bird with a crest and a long, thin bill that is hooked. Its short tail is fan-shaped, and the legs are not drawn. As stated above, pelicans are the only birds in Peru with crests and long, hooked bills. Although pelicans have long necks, they become folded when the bird is in flight. This makes the neck appear shorter and the throat pouch less conspicuous, as is the case with the bird depicted in the geoglyph. In addition, pelicans completely conceal their legs during. For these reasons we have concluded that geoglyphs BG-5b and BG-5c depict pelicans.” (Masaki et. al. 2019:4)

So, are they correct in their assumptions? I certainly have no reason to question their conclusion about the hermit (hummingbird), but does that mean that the other Nazca hummingbird geoglyphs are hummingbirds (Trochilinae), not hermits (Phaethornithinae), or are they just not classified?

The parrot hatchling seems convincing although there is always the possibility that it is just a generic bird geoglyph, only coincidentally possessing the characteristics that the researchers identified. I am the least confident about the pelicans, especially the apparent lack of the large throat pouch that pelicans possess, and which is not apparent in these geoglyphs, but I am not an ornithologist, so I will bow to their expertise on these.

What I find really fascinating is their observation that none of these birds live anywhere near Nazca today. Although the people would have seen pelicans on trips to the coast, the hermits and parrots live a long way away from Nazca, in the Amazon across the Andes to the east. How do we interpret that? And how far did Masaki et. al. go in looking for matches? There might be a better match just a county farther away. All in all though, these are fascinating questions, and a real contribution to our understanding of some of the Nazca geoglyphs.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original publications listed below.

REFERENCES:

Aveni, A. F.
2000 Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru, University of Texas Press, Austin.

Lumbreras, L. G.,
2000 Contexto Arqueologico de las Lineas y Geoglifos de Nasca, UNESCO-INC.

Masaki Eda, Takeshi Yamasaki and Masato Sakai,
2019 Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Identifying the Bird Figures of the Nasca Pampas: An Ornithological Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101875

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS/PARROTS REVISITED:

Macaws, Square Tower Canyon,

Hovenweep Nat. Mon., San Juan

county, UT. Photograph:

Peter Faris, 28 May 1988.

A fascinating subject to study in rock art of the American Southwest, an arid region with much desert, is a picture of a parrot or macaw. But we know that macaws were imported into the American Southwest from their Mesoamerican home during the Ancestral Puebloan periods. On December 15, 2010, I posted a column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS, about a group of petroglyphs in Hovenweep National Monument, Utah.

Macaw, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

New Mexico. Photograph: Paul

and Joy Foster.

On March 20, 2011, I posted another column entitled BIRDS IN ROCK ART -PARROTS, about images found in Petroglyph National Monument in West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico. These are birds we think of as jungle creatures from a wetter and more verdant area, one thousand miles away from where the petroglyphs are found.

Two macaws, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

New Mexico. Photograph: Paul

and Joy Foster.

Stephen Lekson (2015) discussed the presence of macaws in this area in terms of logistics (importing/breeding/trading). He relegated to them a function of display and ceremony, almost conspicuous consumption, among upper class rulers at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the twelfth century, and Aztec, New Mexico, in the thirteenth century.

                                                              

Scarlet macaw. Archaeology,

Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October

                           2015 p. 16.

         

"Chaco was a conspicuous eleventh century consumer of macaws. Paquime was a fourteenth-century producer. Aztec . . . well, Aztec had three macaws - two actual macaws (Lori Pendelton, personal communication, 1997) and one macaw feather (Morris 1919:64). Aztec Ruins and its region have not produced many foreign curios.

But, of course, Aztec West is only one of the half dozen large buildings at Aztec. What a different picture we would have of Chaco had only Chetro Ketl and not Pueblo Bonito been excavated! With the current data, however, it appears that long-range exchange - spectacularly evident at Chaco in the twelfth century and Paquime in the fourteenth century - was greatly reduced at Aztec during the thirteenth century." (Lekson 2015:91)

"Macaws were important to Chaco; thirty-four were found at the canyon, and a few were found at Aztec. Paquime had hundreds and bred the birds, probably supplying feathers - needed for developing kachina ceremonialism - to all the Pueblos (Hargrave 1970). "The people wished to go south, and raise parrots," according to the Acoma and Zuni stories; and that's exactly what they did." (Lekson 2015:147)

Now, according to an article in Archaeology magazine (Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October 2015, p.16) by Eric A. Powell, we have a hard date for the presence of those birds in the area. 

Macaw skull, Chaco Canyon, New

Mexico. Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 5,

September/October 2015, p. 16.

"In the prehistoric American Southwest, trade with distant Mesoamerica was a source of power and prestige that could make or break a ruler. Within the massive multistory buildings at New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, for instance, archaeologists have discovered exotic goods from Mexico, such as cacao and the remains of 33 scarlet macaws, whose natural habitat is 1,000 miles away on the Gulf of Mexico. Scholars had assumed that long-distance trade became important only during the period when Chaco's power was greatest, from A.D. 1040 to 1110. But now a team has dated the macaw bones and found that some were imported as early as A. D. 900. "I was very much surprised," says American Museum of Natural History archaeologist Adam Watson, who helped organize the dating. "I, along with everyone else, assumed the trade networks with Mexico didn't become important until Chaco expanded. Now we have evidence that control over trade and political power were being consolidated long before then." (Powell 2015:16)

It turns out that the presence of macaws/parrots in the American Southwest dates from almost a century earlier than previously assumed. This carries strong implications on the scale of trade between the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, as well as Chacoan societal development. I imagine the impact that a creature like a scarlet macaw would have had on the people of Chacoan society, their presence would seem almost magical. It is this mental and emotional picture that gives these petroglyphs their impact on modern viewers.

REFERENCES:

Lekson, Stephen H.

2015    The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years Of Political And Religious Power In The Ancient Southwest, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

Powell, Eric A.

2015    Early Parrots in the Southwest, page 16, Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 5, September/October 2015.