What Is Where? The Role of Map Representations and Mapping Practices in Advancing Scholarship

Abstract

The emergence of the mapping impulse "More mapping of more domains by more nations will probably occur in the next decade than has occurred at any time since Alexander von Humboldt 'rediscovered' the earth in the eighteenth century, and more terra incognita will be charted than ever before in history" -Stephen S. Hall, Mapping the Next Millennium (1992: 22) "How many maps, in the descriptive or geographical sense, might be needed to deal exhaustively with a given space, to code and decode all its meanings and content?" -Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (1991: 85) We can state with a fair degree of certainly that map making in some form is as old as human history. That is, when we look at the world population 10,000 years ago the earliest human clans already had someone making or preparing maps in some way. Hunter gathers at that time probably numbered about ten million people who lived in forests, grasslands, and intermediate environments in multiple locations of small numbers on all continents. A major source of their wellbeing was concerned about basic survival questions, such as the sources of food, water, building materials for homes, places of safety and the locations of friends and adversaries. Place was a primary concern about livelihood. This "spatial" survival information was in the heads of these earliest tropical and subtropical people (Ingold, 2000). It was not only information that was known, but also had to be conveyed to others in some way. Verbal communication was one way these earliest peoples could and did reveal information about "what was where." However, another way also became important in communication was by devising representations or ways of visually demarcating the location of something. In pre-literate and written language cultures some members of a clan or tribal group began to think of creative and imaginative ways to show "what was where." Here we are not talking about maps as we know them today, but other schematic ways to represent and portray vital geographical information for the community.The earliest mapmakers would, could and did use various ways to depict the location of food sources, good drinking water and place settings that were safe from wild animals or neighboring groups competing for the same territories. They were also concerned about the navigable pathways and the best routes from point A to point B. Boundaries or territorial limits of livelihood spaces were also something always in the minds of the earliest human settlements as well. The earliest proto-"maps" were most likely crude representations of "what was where," made by drawing lines in the sand or mud or using branches of a tree with different sizes and spacings of twigs to show place features. Leafs and flowers and plant stems, all with geometric features, could be used as "maps" as well as they could and did convey information about "what was where" that could supplement orally conveyed knowledge. The arrangement of stones, with stratified by different

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