A geoglyph is a large design or motif – generally longer than – produced on the ground by

durable Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in us ...

elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth. A positive geoglyph is formed by the arrangement and alignment of materials on the ground in a manner akin to

petroform Petroforms, also known as boulder outlines or boulder mosaics, are human-made shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground, often on quite level areas. Petroforms in North America were originally made by various Native A ...

s, while a negative geoglyph is formed by removing part of the natural ground surface to create differently coloured or textured ground in a manner akin to

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s. Geoglyphs are generally a type of

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mo ...

, and sometimes

rock art In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...

. A

hill figure A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and ...

is created on a slope, so that it can be seen from a distance.

Ancient

Arguably the most famous geoglyphs are the Nazca lines in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The cultural significance of these geoglyphs for their creators remains unclear, despite many hypotheses. Since the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

, Brazil, leading to claims about

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

civilizations. Ondemar Dias is accredited with first discovering the geoglyphs in 1977 and Alceu Ranzi with furthering their discovery after flying over

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

. Other areas with geoglyphs include

Megaliths in the Urals In recent years, many megaliths have been discovered in the Urals: dolmens, menhirs and a large megalithic cultic complex on Vera Island. Dolmens of the Middle Urals At present, more than 200 dolmens have been discovered in the Sverdlovsk Oblast. ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

(

Marree Man The Marree Man is a modern geoglyph discovered in 1998 in Outback South Australia. It depicts an Aboriginal man hunting with a boomerang or stick. It lies on a plateau at Finniss Springs, west of the township of Marree in central South Aus ...

, which is not ancient, but rather a modern work of art, with mysterious origins),

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

and parts of the

Great Basin Desert The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range in the western United States. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife ...

in the southwestern United States.

Hill figure A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and ...

turf maze Historically, a turf maze is a labyrinth made by cutting a convoluted path into a level area of short grass, sod, turf or lawn. Some had names such as Mizmaze, Troy Town, The Walls of Troy, Julian's Bower, or Shepherd's Race. This is the type of m ...

s and the stone-lined

labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth () is an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by the h ...

s of

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, Lappland and the former Soviet Union are types of geoglyphs. The south of England has a number of equine and human figures cut into

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

hillsides. Examples include the

Uffington White Horse The Uffington White Horse is a Prehistoric Britain, prehistoric hill figure, long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of Whitehorse Hill in the English civil parishes in En ...

Cerne Abbas Giant The Cerne Abbas Giant is a hill figure near the village of Cerne Abbas, in Dorset, England. It is currently owned by the National Trust, and listed as a scheduled monument of England. Measuring in length, the hill figure depicts a bald, nude ...

Westbury White Horse Westbury White Horse or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is ...

, and the

Long Man of Wilmington The Long Man of Wilmington or Wilmington Giant is a hill figure on the steep slopes of Windover Hill near Wilmington, East Sussex, Wilmington, East Sussex, England. It is northwest of Eastbourne and south of Wilmington. Locally, the figure w ...

. Some are ancient, others from the last few centuries.

Possible geoglyphs

The " Works of the Old Men" in

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, "stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," have been described as geoglyphs by Amelia Sparavigna, a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy. The use of this term to describe these features is probably inaccurate, as recent research has shown that most were not constructed primarily as art, but were rather built to serve a range of purposes including burial sites and funerary customs, aiding in the trapping of migratory animals, and as cleared areas for camps, houses and animal enclosures.

Contemporary

Not all geoglyphs are ancient. The

Land Art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mo ...

movement created many new geoglyphs as well as other structures; perhaps the most famous example is ''

Spiral Jetty ''Spiral Jetty'' is a work of land art constructed in April 1970 that is considered to be the most important work by American sculptor Robert Smithson. Smithson documented the construction of the sculpture in a 32-minute color film also titled ' ...

'' by

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

. Many towns and cities in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement i ...

use

hillside letters Hillside letters or mountain monograms are a form of hill figures common in the Western United States, consisting of large single letters, abbreviations, or messages displayed on hillsides, typically created and maintained by schools or towns. Th ...

(also known as "mountain monograms") on the hills above their locations. Contemporary Australian

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Andrew Rogers has created geoglyphs around the world called "The Rhythms of Life".

You Yangs Regional Park The You Yangs Regional Park is a park in southern central Victoria, Australia. The park encompasses much of the southern areas of the You Yangs, a granite range that rises from the Werribee Plains, 60 km southwest of Melbourne. The park is ...

is the home of a geoglyph constructed by Rogers in recognition of the indigenous people of the area. It depicts

Bunjil Bunjil, also spelt Bundjil, is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being, often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle in Australian Aboriginal mythology of some of the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria. Creation stories In the Kulin nati ...

, a mythical creature in the culture of the local

Wautharong The Wadawurrung nation, also called the Wathaurong, or Wathaurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong, and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The ...

Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

Geoglyphic texts and images are common in Central and

Inner Asia Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North Asia, North, Central Asia, Central, and East Asia. It includes parts of Western China, western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some d ...

but there has been little systematic study of their origins and spread. More recent figures in the south of England created since the early 1800s have kept up the region's ancient tradition of

hillside figures. Examples of these are the

Litlington White Horse The Litlington White Horse is a chalk hill figure depicting a horse, situated on Hindover Hill (locally known as High-and-Over) in the South Downs. It overlooks the River Cuckmere to the west of the village of Litlington, East Sussex, Litling ...

Devizes White Horse Devizes White Horse, officially known as the Devizes Millennium White Horse, is a chalk hill figure of a horse located on Bank Field, an escarpment at Roundway Hill, on the outskirts of the town of Devizes above the hamlet of Roundway, Wiltshire ...

Fovant Badges The Fovant Badges are a set of Cap badge, regimental badges cut into a chalk hill, Fovant Down, near Fovant, in south-west Wiltshire, England. They are between Salisbury and Shaftesbury on the A30 road in the River Nadder, Nadder valley, and ar ...

Cherhill White Horse Cherhill White Horse is a hill figure on Cherhill Down, 3.5 miles east of Calne in Wiltshire, England. Dating from the late 18th century, it is the third oldest of several such white horses in Great Britain, with only the Uffington White Hors ...

, and the

Marlborough White Horse Marlborough White Horse, also called the Preshute White Horse, is a hill figure on Granham Hill, a fairly shallow slope of the downland above the hamlet of Preshute, southwest of Marlborough in the county of Wiltshire, England. Dating from ...

In 2008–2009 Alfie Dennen created Britglyph, a locative art-focused geoglyph created by having participants across the United Kingdom leave rocks at highly specific locations and uploading media created at each location. When taken together and viewed on the main project website an image of a watch and chain inspired by

John Harrison John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was an English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the History of longitude, problem of how to calculate longitude while at sea. Harrison's sol ...

marine chronometer A marine chronometer is a precision timepiece that is carried on a ship and employed in the determination of the ship's position by celestial navigation. It is used to determine longitude by comparing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and the time at t ...

H5 was created. People have used the

Strava Strava is an American internet service for tracking physical exercise which incorporates social network features. It started out tracking mostly outdoor cycling and running activities using Global Positioning System (GPS) data, but now incorpor ...

mobile app and other

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

systems to create

GPS drawing GPS drawing, also known as GPS art, is a method of drawing where an artist uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) device and follows a pre-planned route to create a large-scale picture or pattern. The .GPX data file recorded during the drawing pro ...

s, virtual geoglyphs.

Geoglyphs in the world

References

External links

The Blythe Intaglios, A Photo Gallery
{{Authority control Archaeological features -01 Methods in archaeology Prehistoric inscriptions Rock art