History of navigation

The history of navigation, or the history of seafaring, is the art of directing vessels upon the open sea through the establishment of its position and course by means of traditional practice, geometry, astronomy, or special instruments. Many peoples have excelled as seafarers, prominent among them the Austronesians (Islander Southeast Asians, Malagasy, Islander Melanesians, Micronesians, and Polynesians), the Harappans, the Phoenicians, the Iranians, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the ancient Indians, the Norse, the Chinese, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Hanseatic Germans, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, the French, the Dutch, and the Danes. Austronesian expansion and Polynesian navigation Navigation in the Indo-Pacific began with the maritime migrations of the Austronesians from Taiwan who spread southwards into Island Southeast Asia and Island Melanesia during a period between 3000 and 1000 BC. Their first long-distance voyaging was the colonization of Micronesia from the Philippines at around 1500 BC. By about 900 BC their descendants had spread more than 6,000 kilometers across the Pacific, reaching Tonga and Samoa. In this region, a distinctive Polynesian culture developed. Within the next few centuries Polynesians reached Hawaii, New Zealand, Easter Island and possibly South America. Polynesian navigators used a range of tools and methods, including observation of birds, star navigation, and use of waves and swells to detect nearby land. Songs, mythological stories, and star charts were used to help people remember important navigational information. Meanwhile, Austronesians in Island Southeast Asia began the first true maritime trade networks by about 1000 BC, linking China, southern India, the Middle East, and coastal eastern Africa. Settlers from Borneo reached Madagascar by the early 1st millennium AD and colonized it by AD 500. Sailors navigating in the Mediterranean made use of several techniques to determine their location, including staying in sight of land and understanding of the winds and their tendencies.