Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 5.4.
The Oseberg
ship, a Viking longship from
the ninth century CE. This
vessel is on display in the
Viking Ship Museum in
Norway.
Thanks to Waldemar J.
Poerner for this image.
not a regular occurrence because of the risks of letting go of the shore and
heading into variable and contrary seas without the tools or techniques to
accurately establish position or heading.
Yet during this period there were mariners who ventured, as a matter of
course, over vast expanses of ocean, and they did so without navigational
tools. Instead, they used the accumulated knowledge carefully passed on to
succeeding generations. Let us see what they did and how they did it.
South Sea Sailors
The disparate groups of people indigenous to the southern Pacific islands
probably originated in Taiwan. From about 3000 BCE they spread from
Taiwan throughout the islands of southeast Asia. Two or three of these
groups—the Polynesians, the Micronesians, and perhaps the Melanesians
—became expert navigators who colonized far-flung and remote islands
over a 2,500-year period. From what is now Indonesia and the Philippines
they spread eastward to New Guinea and Micronesia, reaching Fiji, and
then Tonga and Samoa around 1000 BCE. By 100 CE they had found their
