Paul August Kosok (21 April 1898 – 1959),[1] was an American professor of history and government, who is credited as the first serious researcher of the Nazca Lines in Peru.
For instance, together they identified and mapped more than 300 ancient canals of prehistoric Peru, and found that the people had built highly sophisticated systems for shifting water from one valley to another.
He went to Peru to study the ancient canal systems, "reconstruct the maximum areas of pre-Columbian cultivation, and assess the relation of irrigation to settlement patterns".
This inspired his study of the lines to assess if they were related to astronomy, as he knew that solar events were closely followed by ancient agricultural societies for their planting cycles.
He was working on the general interest book on the irrigation of ancient cultures when he died in 1959; it was published posthumously in 1965 with the support of Schaedel.
His work was praised posthumously as a "program of research about the significance of irrigation on the North Coast of Peru to both Andean and cross-cultural studies, a source-book of ideas and hypotheses for generations of field workers".
She spoke five languages and aided in mapping the lines, as well as assessing how the massive figures might have been scaled up from smaller drawings or patterns.
Dr. Kosok became chairman of the Department of History and Government at Long Island University, located in Brooklyn, New York.