Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
most people's experience. For example, the Romans relied on maps to show
the extent of their empire. The maps became iconic, as an image of the geo-
graphic extent of the empire. Before the Romans other cultures also used
maps. Sometimes maps took on more of an iconic role, and sometimes maps
were simply used for practical tasks.
The Romans developed maps in both their iconic and practical roles fur-
ther. Iconic maps served, as Denis Cosgrove writes, as a way for individuals
to understand their place in an empire and to associate their calling and
position in life with both the mundane events of day-to-day life and the
divine, symbolized by the emperor for most of Roman history. The cosmol-
ogy of the Romans involved maps. Practically, Romans not only advanced
but solidly established the basic principles of cadastral maps (also see Chap-
ters 5 and 12), which would become the basis for modern arrangements of
land ownership and subdivision hundreds of years later. The itineraries used
by the Romans became the basis for showing travel times between cities.
Maps showing connections based on time are still important for transporta-
tion, especially road maps that show the relationships between places.
From the late Middle Ages (around 1400 A.D. ) on, maps took on more
practical functions for military uses but also for cadastres and increasingly
for the visualization of statistical information used for social and environ-
mental decision making. The iconic role of maps remains to this day, as we
see in many company logos and advertisements. Maps (and later GI) became
part of the increasingly specialized and bureaucratized social activities that
required detailed understanding of the world and the ability to share this
understanding with other groups and cultures. The military plays a key part
in these activities, although we also need to remember that commercial inter-
ests have produced or adapted military GI and maps with many significant
uses.
INDIGENOUS
Native, or indigenous, cultures around the world have relied on forms of
geographic representations that should also be considered as maps. Even
though they may be sharply different from what people in Western-inf lu-
enced cultures have come to understand as maps, they are material devices
used to communicate things and events in their geographic relationships.
An example of this type of map is the stick charts used by Pacific South Sea
islanders as training device and navigation aids for people traveling across
the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.
Other indigenous cultures had other forms for communicating geo-
graphic ideas, often connecting spiritual and physical geographies. The fail-
ure to recognize indigenous cultural geographic representations has been an
ongoing source of conflict in many areas of the world. Rundstrom, along
with many others, points out that the assumption that a European-based rep-
resentation of the world in a topographic map contains just the “facts” repre-
sented by naming can lead to the inclusion of sites and artifacts that hold
special spiritual and cultural significance for indigenous groups. As these
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