cartography

Mapmaking

In “How Data Won the West” in the July/August issue of Smithsonian, Clive Thompson wrote that “we’ve had maps for about 8,000 years.” What were the first maps ever produced?

Alex Pappas, Brooklyn, New York

There’s no definitive answer, says Jim Harle, maps curation volunteer at the National Museum of Natural History, though scholars believe there are candidates among several carvings on rocks, tusks and bones that are more than 10,000 years old. Some see maps in the more primitive carvings, others only in more complex ones. The extensive petroglyphs (illustrated above) at and near Bedolina, in the Italian Alps, include the perhaps best-known ancient topographic map; they were carved over an 8,000-year period, ending about 1,000 B.C.