**2. Early cartographers**

Our history of early cartographers has many "gaps," including who they actually were. Perhaps they were a woman or man who exhibited to peers some spatial, esthetic and creative "wherewithal" about places nearby or distant and also displayed those talents in designing tools and weapons, clothing, musical instruments and even reading the stars to predict regular and irregular events. Or they may have been someone with a physical disability who enjoyed listening to stories of someone who eagerly ventured into known and unknown places. Or they may have been those who led hunting and gathering sojourns for daily livelihood or persons of power and leadership who led expeditions into little-known places or military leaders who returned from exploits and provided knowledge that they sought to display on some flat surface. Whoever they were and whatever their purposes were, the earliest cartographers were, like today, both creative in thinking spatially and also seeking how to represent what they observed and learned to satisfy members of some tribe or clan or to advance some commercial or state-powered ambitions.

In describing any creative earth-surface map, it is important to consider and value the early cartographers' ingenuity and ability to depict "place and environment" content in some framework for others to learn from, build on and enjoy. One can look at the construction and evolution of maps and map-making for a very small local forested or grassland area or a coastline or riverine settlement as ongoing efforts to know more about "what is where," but also how to present that knowledge to others for whatever purposes. That use might be to locate safe places to live, good places to fish, hunt and grow crops, places for secure settlements and places to expand and depict place knowledge beyond what the cartographer and/or geographer already knew. Even a cursory examination of early map knowledge in Southern Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean displayed on various surfaces (stone, clay, wood, cave walls, etc.) reveals that in the span of several millennia more information was gained about distant places, peoples, landscapes and environments. This accretion of knowledge was gained by those exploring new places and moving into new home spaces and environments, all increasing in an ever-expanding place-knowledge base.

### **3. European cartographers**

Ever so slowly did that accumulated geographic knowledge about human histories begin to appear on more maps. In short, cartographers were beginning to "fill in" some of the "knowledge gaps," some that had persisted and now were "filled" some with the river, a mountain, wildlife or secure place for human settlement.

These increased "place knowledges" appeared on maps produced by states who sent military, commercial and religious expeditions into unknown territories and then returned with new place knowledge. That information the states themselves valued to display political and commercial power and a desire to claim territory for their own prestige and control [1]. In short, maps became not just a source of "surface or flat-earth" information about new places, but official evidence to assert some control and claim over "their" new spaces. Maps as official creative "instruments of power" were used to make claims about places and environments of which they often had little prior knowledge, all efforts to ensure themselves and others that they did not invade their "new spaces of control." During the Ages of Exploration and Discovery, especially beyond Europe and the Middle East, they were constantly competing for extra-territorial efforts to not only gain more knowledge about new and distant places but also to produce detailed and colorful maps that clearly showed state sovereignty. These maps not only depicted their exploratory efforts but also showed their claims over previously unmapped and distant places. These innovative and imaginative colonial expansion maps of "cartographic imperialism" showed possessions, some place name features related to state explorations along coasts, mouths of rivers and distinct physical features such as mountains, deserts and also settlements [2]. Many unmapped indigenous-named features were renamed.

Creative cartography was in full swing during Europe's exploration and discovery history [3]. Maps were among the best ways to show that those in power had firsthand knowledge and control about places for human settlement. And they could display that knowledge on maps (not many until printing presses) for their own constituents. More maps gradually appeared in public places to show military and corporate power and control but also in education settings. These were detailed maps of some regions, such as Europe or eastern North America, but also crudely drawn world maps of the continental interiors of Australia, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Surely, these early world maps were inaccurate by contemporary standards, but they were very important in establishing claims by early European countries funding exploratory voyages and later settlements. These early world maps also were Eurocentric; that is, Europe was in the middle. What was at the "map edges" considered less important? The words "Near, Middle and Far" were used in European labeling of the worlds beyond. This subtle labeling of regions is a legacy that remains to this day with millions associating Europe as "the Center of the world." Consider the contemporary use of the "Middle East" instead of Southwest Asia and "Far East" instead of East Asia. And do not forget where 0-degree longitude exists—in Greenwich, England. Europe was the center of early world map construction and Eurocentric views remain important in world visual news reporting.

Cartographers over the centuries sought to "fill in the gaps," especially gaps in maps of continents. That task has always been a major one for those studying all places on Planet Earth. The first world maps of Africa, North and South America and Asia, as well as oceans, displayed much emptiness. The answer for the Earth-bound cartographer was simple; there was next to nothing known about "what was where." The absence of any knowledge base from a discovery team meant that something "had" to be placed in those blank spaces. Not surprisingly, the cartographer himself (most were men) placed huge whales in oceans, mermaids along shorelines, and imaginary mountains and deserts "somewhere." Strange and huge wildlife creatures (snakes, elephants, etc.) or some strange-looking people were also inserted in places where place knowledge was absent. It was both a terrae and an aquae incognitae.

Increasing human settlement and migration from Europe and evolving cartography gradually filled in many of these gaps with specific information from explorations

#### *Perspective Chapter: Creative Mapping and Mapping Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102729*

into continental interiors, along coastlines, into mountains and also contacts with indigenous peoples. Creativity blossomed with more place names and political boundaries showing territorial claims in lands and landscapes known and unknown, and with Europeans superimposing their own "knowledge base" over any existing indigenous geographical naming. The "Europeanization" of the world did not exist to the same degree in interior Africa, Southwest Asia and Central Asia as it did at local scales in Europe. The European claims and boundaries on maps were often defined by major features such as rivers or mountains. Connecting coordinates by strait lines defined boundaries of territories and colonies in Africa, North and South America and Australia. Place names defining European control and settlement eventually were common in initial and subsequent settlements around much of the world. Not knowing "what was there" or "who was there" was not that important. What was important in a state's raison d'être was establishing a claim before another colonial power and constructing and displaying maps that showed power and control. The Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 of European powers became the defining point in colonial boundary drawing in Africa, the impacts which remain to this day. Maps were used for political, commercial and military purposes as we have observed in boundary and territorial conflicts over land spaces in the past five centuries. These two-dimensional maps still serve as places of conflict, power and control, even in a cyber world.

The creativity behind European mapping efforts of Earth's space extended far beyond their initial uses by the state. Behind those early state-funded explorations into distant places, by Europeans especially, were those in cooperation with the commercial sector. Their goals were to find sources of additional revenue for settlement, wealth and power. These enterprises not only added to their own power, domain and influence but also stimulated competition with other states for prized non-European territorial spaces distant from Europe. These were not simply to find sources for more tropical fruits or valuable minerals but as spaces to spread their culture (political, religious, heritage). Supporting these European efforts were African slaves they brought to the Western Hemisphere in large numbers and European diasporas emerging in South and Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Each new group of Europeans brought Europeans in contact with existing indigenous populations. The objective was to establish European cultural and political systems. Those explorations were evident in European place names on maps and also in renaming existing indigenous places on European settled landscapes. Again, power was evident in the construction and display of information on a state map. Colonial maps of continents were constructed in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese and Italian. Continental maps were also creative in using a variety of colors to effectively show spaces and places that are "mine, not yours." The colorful mosaic of political spaces existed into the 1960s and 1970s on world maps showing European colonies in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Cartographers employed by governments and companies making maps for school or home use were kept busy constructing maps that reflected name changes associated with independence, but also peaceful and violent transitions resulting from conflicting border claims.
