Yamagata University uses IBM's PAIRS Geoscope and Watson to uncover patterns in ancient etchings

Ever heard of the Nasca Lines? They're literal lines etched in the sands of southern Peru covering an area of nearly 1,000 square kilometers, which depict over 300 different figures including animals and plants. The best evidence suggests that they're pre-Columbian in origin, dating from between roughly 500 BC and 500 AD, and that they might mark solstice points or serve as offerings to ancient deities. Although the Nasca Lines have been studied for decades (and more intensely since they were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994), they've yet to be fully mapped. Yamagata used IBM's Watson Machine Learning Accelerator (WMLA) -- a framework designed to handle large-scale workloads spanning clusters of machines -- to expedite their analyses.