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Friday, July 17, 2009

Stick Maps/Charts of Micronesia

Coming Anarchy had a great blurb about Micronesian stick maps. The Micronesians colonized the vast South Pacific in the era of sea fairing canoes. How they did it was geography. But not geography as Westerners, or even most Easterners, would understand it. They made stick maps that included spatial data as well as currents and waves. The system is so foreign (and very complex) that it is beyond Catholicgauze's understanding.

stick-chart

A map well beyond me.

More information is available here, here and here. This article explains how the maps can be read. If you can understand it congradulations!

1 comment:

Dan tdaxp said...

Fascinating to think that if the pattern of swells would change, the maps too would have to change...