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I assume it’s because the SA construction projects are more visible today than NA projects. Nazca lines are still visible along with Inca and Maya stone buildings. NA mounds and these canals are not as visible so people just can’t see them and walk around them as well.

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The north American equivalent of the Nazca lines (the Blythe intaglios [1]) are just as visible, simply not as numerous and importantly, they don't have a decades-long presence in the public mind as an enduring archaeological mystery.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Intaglios

It's probably because the biggest at Blythe Intaglios is about 50 meters across, while some of the Nazcal Line figures are more than a kilometer across. The former seems like something a handful of people could plausibly do on a whim as a hobby, while the latter seems like something that would require careful planning, maybe some surveying techniques, and a lot more energy expenditure and manhours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Nickell

This researcher and a small team re-created a method to make Nazca lines in the 70's with the same tech that the Nazca civilization had. People make very complex crop circles all by themselves, too. It's simply a matter of a bit of math and careful planning and practice.

Nobody is saying it is impossible, just that it requires more interesting explanation. Certainly you would agree?

Not really, no. It wasn’t anything crazy like aliens or whatever, just humans doing engineering.

Engineering is crazy and amazing enough

That’s for sure, I’m still pretty sure I couldn’t figure out a foolproof way to draw giant figures.

> It's simply a matter of a bit of math and careful planning and practice.

That lines up with what I suppose above. A few people, careful planning and a bit of basic math/surveying to make the Nazca figures.

But the Blythe Intaglios figures are much smaller, at 50 meters across I think I could probably make a figure like those by kicking around gravel for a day or two. No planning or math needed, I'd just eyeball it.

Drawing is hard enough for me that I can't imagine just kicking some dirt around for a few days to draw even a 10m stick figure, but I do get your point that it would definitely be easier than trying to draw a 50m, and in turn even harder for a 500m figure.

South America was also much more populous than North America. I suspect we weren’t as successful at eliminating stouthearted americas culture.

It's kind of unclear. It's also possible that because of the slower exploration and settlement of North America, we simply never saw the large societies before they collapsed from disease (especially true of the Mississippian cultures) — Europeans only came through in force a hundred years later.

It’s so unclear. There’s so much we don’t know about America it’s pretty insane.

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