Off-roaders destroyed 3,000-year-old art from a lost civilization in Chile

A group of off-roaders damaged a historic site in Chile.

By driving on the surface of a specific section of the Atacama desert, off-roaders ruined Chilean geoglyphs dating as far back as 3,000 yeras ago.

Chilean authorities said the damage is likely ‘irreversible’.

This is where, ordinarily, we’d find a redeeming ‘but the good news is’ moment, but it seems like there isn’t one.

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What are these geoglyphs in Chile?

A geoglyphs is a large motif, you can call it artwork, than can be seen from above.

It’s generally produced on the ground using stones, gravel, earth, and so on.

These geoglyphs were likely created 3,000 years ago and it’s infuriating to think they might be ruined.

The only thing we can hope for is that perhaps Chilean authorities are mistaken and that the damage is not irreversible as they say.

When off-roading goes wrong

Off-roaders are often not used off-road.

The Cybertruck – for example – is technically designed for that, but most people never take it anywhere without tarmac.

Although, on occasion, we’ve seen what the truck can do.

A while back, we saw a Cybertruck rescue another off-roader stuck in mud.

By contrast, there are also off-roaders that are designed to see dirt, mud, snow, gravel and ice, and they’re actually very good at that.

Like that 55-year-old Mahindra truck that managed to rescue a bigger truck from a river.

But it’s one thing to overestimate the ability of a vehicle and take it somewhere it can’t cope with.

It’s a totally different, and worse, idea to take it somewhere no vehicles should be in the first place.

One of the images for this article was created with AI