[UCANSEE2]

It always intrigues me to wonder WHY people who had much better things to do (like finding FOOD and WATER) spent time doing things like this.

It had to be extremely important to them for some reason.

[Codeflier]

Aliens

[cripplecreek]

Spirituality most likely. I know the natives around Nazca say their ancestors walked the lines performing rituals at certain points as a means of worship.

Pretty much every big thing ancient people did was related to spirituality, the afterlife, or astrology.

[SunkenCiv]

Looking out the window here I see acres of soybean plants.

They’re not ready for harvest.

Agriculture is the bedrock of civilization, as it makes it possible to have a year-round food supply that is more nutritious and less time-consuming. Keeping who owns what straight led to surveying, and recordkeeping, and writing.

These large, basically useless displays of construction are diagnostic of settled agriculture.

And yes, I would prefer to be looking at acres of corn.

[Paladin2]

No TV.

[Resettozero]

It always intrigues me to wonder WHY people who had much better things to do (like finding FOOD and WATER) spent time doing things like this. It had to be extremely important to them for some reason.

I was one of the "why?" students that profs either appreciated or detested, hence the variety of grades I received.

In reading of past cultures such as these, your intriguing "why" has not been addressed adequately within the range of my hearing and study. Lots of books, too many books, wild and wooly books, but not nearly enough of the convincing "here's why"...although the Holy Bible does provide clues worth following...

[Joe 6-pack]

"It always intrigues me to wonder WHY people who had much better things to do (like finding FOOD and WATER) spent time doing things like this."

Millenia from now, people will pick up old copies of TV guide featuring Love Boat, Three's Company and Fantasy Island, and ask the very same question...

[JimSEA]

Religion is part of what defines human. We’re hard wired for it. Look at the atheists’ inability to keep their non belief to themselves but rather join together in their own version of a cult.

[Bernard Marx]

It always intrigues me to wonder WHY people who had much better things to do (like finding FOOD and WATER) spent time doing things like this.

It was crucially important to them. They worshipped the high Andes mountains which they saw as the source for the one thing that meant life or death to them: water. Glyphs were created to be seen by the mountain gods, not space aliens. It was the desperate need for agricultural water that caused them to sacrifice their most precious assets, their children, in high mountain burial ceremonies in attempts to appease the water gods.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

It always intrigues me to wonder WHY people who had much better things to do (like finding FOOD and WATER) spent time doing things like this.

It had to be extremely important to them for some reason.

If you have lunatics running the show, and the population is disarmed, you can get many strange things accomplished.