History of Cartography II Siberia and Pre-Contact Americas

Karelian Petroglyphs

Karelian Petroglyph

Inuit Driftwood Maps

Mojave Rock Map

Red Sky’s Birch bark Migration Scroll

Stela at Izapa (ca 300 BCE-1 CE)

Mapa de Metlatoyuka, 16th c On cloth

TENOCHTITLAN IN THE CODEX MENDOZA (ca 1541)

Mixtec Map of the Apoala Valley in the Codex Nuttall

Map elements

Incan Quipu

Incan Quipu as Map

Quipu as Map

A drawing or other representation of the earth's surface or a part of it made on a flat surface, showing the distribution of physical or geographical features (and often also including socio-economic, political, agricultural, meteorological, etc., information), with each point in the representation corresponding to an actual geographical position according to a fixed scale or projection; a similar representation of the positions of stars in the sky, the surface of a planet, or the like. Also: a plan of the form or layout of something, as a route, a building, etc. (OED) These perhaps are why this definition is so problematic…

graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes or events in the human world' From Harley and Woodward, The History of Cartography (1987) So, while this definition should still stand, it is very difficult for us as modern historians to speak about a map, if we do not understand the legend of the map… that is not to say that images such as some of those we have been discussing are not maps, perhaps they were to people who knew how to read them. But it is difficult for as as historians of cartography to discuss much about an image if we do not understand the legend.– that is not to say that maps need to have legends, they do not, but for a map to work, every one who uses it needs to understnd the legend, and for some of the images which may be maps discussed above, that shared knowledge of the legend (if indeed these are maps) has been lost and so it has become impossible for us to engage critically with these images as maps. And yet these last two cultures particularly… a much narrower definition of map would leave them both out… and perhaps mislead modern historians (as, in fact, they have been misled in terms of such images).– indeed we are just coming to understand what these images mean…