Prehistoric Maps and the History of Cartography : An Introduction CATHERINE

The study of prehistoric mapping in Europe and its borderlands, as in other continents, requires a new beginning. In the past scholars have been handicapped not only by a severe shortage of evidence but also by misguided attitudes toward the intellectual capacity of early man. In addition, they have failed to consider either the diagnostic characteristics of prehistoric maps or the principles that should be developed for their identification and study. Accounts of the origins of mapping have tended to be confused and contradictory, and any new study must necessarily adopt a critical viewpoint. It seems obvious that the origins of European cartography must be sought in the period before that of the earliest recorded maps in the historic societies and that if examples of maps have survived from the prehistoric period they will be found in the archaeological material. Richard Andree seems to have been the first to focus specifically on the origins of mapping, l but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that the real problem was diagnosed. In 1949 Lloyd Brown had remarked that "map making is perhaps the oldest variety of primitive art . . . as old as man's first tracings on the walls of caves and in the sands. ,,2 Yet it was not until 1951 that Leo Bagrow belatedly drew attention to the fact that, notwithstanding these prehistoric origins, actual information about early maps is hard to come by and that early maps had been known for a much shorter time than many other products of civilization. Surveys of the origins of mapping can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The first of three pioneering works is Andree's monograph, which, despite its promising title, "Die Anfange der Kartographie" (The beginnings of cartography), is a straightforward account of mapping by "primitive people." It does not include any discussion of the relation between such mapping and the earliest development of the idea of the map or of spatial skills in the prehistoric period, although these were obviously well developed by the time of the earliest historical maps.4 Andree's paper, which set the tone for much of the subsequent literature, starts with a comment on the way many "primitive people," lacking the benefit of the magnetic compass, are nevertheless able to produce maps of surprising exactitude and accuracy. At-