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Did all cultures have a concept of directions?

before the various cultures of the world knew about eachother...did each culture have an idea of north-east-south-west? was the idea based on the stars, sun, moon? did all cultures use the north star as a guide? i think it would be really interesting if this indeed existed in most cultures, even before they knew about the existence of other cultures...


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Well, as humans we know up from down.

We also know where the sun rises and falls... like you state.

We also have landmarks. We know where rocks with certain shapes and colors are. We know how to recognize land formations, such as a cliff and a river. There might be a range of mountains in the distance. There could be a body of water nearby. All this defines our natural landscapes. So yeah, people know where they are, and have for thousands of years.

The north star is one star. Ancients of all cultures have records of astronomy. It's sort of sad, but before we had cities lighting up the night, the stars were far more visible. Sailors navigated from the stars from Europe to China to Polynesia. It's very ancient. People marked seasons with the occurance of certain constellations as well as time with the stars.

The sun is also very key. There was this Greek guy who figured out that the Earth was a sphere and it's circumference from observing a shadow rotation of a stick. By the way, he was within only a few feet of the exact measurement. LONG BEFORE Galileo. Time is also measured by the sun.

Think about this for a second.

MAPS How old are maps? Most cultures have had maps for thousands of years.

So the answer is that people have always had a sense of direction and surrounding.