Monday, September 27, 2010

Friday, May 14, 2010

Using Laser Signals via aerial LIDAR to Map an Ancient Civilization in a Matter of Days, Surpassing Decades of On-the-Ground Mapping : Caracol : Belize : Archaeology by Chase & Chase

Laser signals via aerial LIDAR (light detection and ranging) permit a twin-engine aircraft to map ancient Caracol in Belize in Central America in a matter of days, surpassing mapping results obtained by on-the-ground mapping over two and a half decades by the archaeological husband-and-wife team of Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase.

For the story see John Noble Wilford at the New York Times in Using Laser to Map Ancient Civilization in a Matter of Days.

Monday, May 10, 2010

World's - Allegedly - Oldest Surviving Geological Map: ca. 1150 B.C. Turin Papyrus Egypt James A. Harrell & V. Max Brown : Journal of Geology

Article: The World's Oldest Surviving Geological Map: The 1150 B.C. Turin Papyrus from Egypt
authored by James A. Harrell and V. Max Brown
The Journal of Geology, 1992, volume 100, p. 3–18
Copyright 1992 The University of Chicago
DOI: 10.1086/629568

Chicago Journals - The Journal of Geology

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Ancient sea travellers had heads in the clouds - Telegraph

Ancient sea travellers had heads in the clouds - Telegraph

"A stone tool found on a remote Pacific island has provided evidence that early Polynesians travelled 2,500 miles by canoe using only the stars, clouds and seabirds as navigational aids."

LexiLine : Message: 19 LexiLine 2007 Megalithic Mapping & Cognitive Psychology

LexiLine : Message: 19 LexiLine 2007 Megalithic Mapping & Cognitive Psychology

"The blog Cognitive Daily has a June 7, 2007 posting titled Human GPS: Some of us are better equipped than others, pointing out on the basis of tests in cognitive psychology that 'navigation using both external visual information and mental mapping is the standard for most people.'

What the psychologists have discovered conforms to our arguments concerning the hermetic mapping system of the ancients in adapting the 'mental map' of the stars above to the external visual megalithic information which they correspondingly placed below."

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Geography in Italian Schools

The blog Thinking in GIS by Paolo Corti,writes on February 2, 2010 in The unity of all the sciences is found in Geography:
In Italy, recntly, a new law is being discussed and if approved it will substantially reduce the hours Geography is taught in schools....
A petition campaign has been started to challenge that development....

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Flavorwire » Fun with Science: A Subway Map for Space

Caroline Stanley shows us some Flavorwire » Fun with Science: A Subway Map for Space created by Samuel Arbesman, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.

Friday, January 15, 2010

APOD: 2010 January 15 - Scenes from Two Hemispheres

APOD: 2010 January 15 - Scenes from Two Hemispheres

Web maps show old views of Africa

Web maps show old views of Africa - BBC News, 11 January, 2007
"A collection of rare maps of Africa, dating from 1530 to 1915, has been made freely available on the internet by Northwestern University in the US.

Curator David Easterbrook says the antique maps not only show the growing geographical knowledge of Africa but the progression of colonisation.

'Early cartographers had not visited or surveyed the land, so they had to do their best guesswork,' he told the BBC.

All of the 113 maps can be examined in detail on the site or downloaded."

BBC News - Ancient map with China at centre goes on show in US

BBC News - Ancient map with China at centre goes on show in US
"A historic map of the world, with China at its centre, has gone on display at the Library of Congress in Washington.

The map was created by Italian missionary Matteo Ricci in 1602. It is one of only two copies in existence in good condition."