Finding Our Way

Finding Our Way: An Exploration of Human Navigation

 

Finding Our WayThis intriguing exhibition explored both the biological underpinnings of human navigation and its technological history, from the sea-faring cultures of the southern Pacific to early European mariners. Compelling mounted specimens from Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology helped tell the story of the human navigational instinct, deeply rooted in animal biology. Viewing accurate scale models of sailing canoes and nautical stick charts from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, visitors marveled at how expert navigators, using a relatively simple toolkit, successfully negotiated the complex archipelagos of the southern Pacific. 


The exhibition traced the evolution of European celestial navigation, from the quadrant and astrolabe to the cross staff, octant, and sextant and showcases an array of variations in navigational instrument design. The exhibition displayed diverse navigational methods used by fourteenth- to nineteenth-century mariners—including compasses and various dead-reckoning tools, as well as nautical atlases, maps, piloting books, and astrological texts borrowed from the Harvard Map Collection and the Houghton Library Archives.

 

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February 13 through December 11, 2016

Special Exhibition Gallery, Science Center 251