Map Room Ramblings | Atlas Altera

Following episodes 11 and 2, we now turn to exploring how and why the different regions of the world of Altera got their names.  Other topics covered: the four ways to divide the continent of Africa; Eritrea as an exonym; Nubia's Baqt treaty's connection to the Zanj Rebellion in Mesopotamia;  an Zanj, Zanzibar, and Azania as cognates and Sudan as an analogous term; defining the new boundaries for Asia; the many possible etymologies of Siberia; reapplying the Greco term Taprobana to Australia; how places like Guinea, Ethiopia, Thule, and Hesperia were geographic moving targets until recently; the emerging political geography of Turtle Island; and lamentations for missed opportunities of basing place names on Tierra del Fuego, Andina, and the Caribbean.

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

Building off of the general overview in episode #2 for how and why places are named/renamed in Altera, we set off to systematically explore the etymologies behind geographic name in Altera, starting top-level first with landmasses and continents. Other topics covered: the difference between a continent and a landmass, Amerigo Vespucci, the etymology of Alaska, the geographic concepts of Ecumene and Nusantara, the -stan suffix, power relations and exonyms, connecting the East Indies with the Spice Islands or Moluccas, septentrion as north and the historic French system of orientation, the Southern Cross and its tie to iconography in the Southern Hemisphere, and Southern Ocean geographic exceptionalism.

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

This is the last episode done for the Humans of Altera feature map for the Atlas Altera project. We cover the topic of genetic differences in human populations, rework commonly perceived notions of race, and showcase interesting connections and ironies in human ancestries.   

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

CONTENT WARNING: This discussion refers to mass violence, mass atrocities, and genocide. Moral judgement is not touched upon, but is implicit and expected from viewers.

Moving from the early prehistoric dispersal humans and pre-modern migrations covered in the previous discussion, we discuss the demographic implications of the so-called "Age of Discovery" in an unorthodox way by looking at population shifts, disruptions, and displacements. By coming to see settler colonialism and imperialism in this lens, we come to appreciate just how radically different human populations have become in the last few centuries. Other topics covered:  the Guanches people of the Canary Islands, the concept of terra nullius, isolated and uncontacted peoples, Canadian residential schools, the silent trade, the Kusunda of the Himalayas, the Vedda of Sri Lanka, uncontacted farmers of Papua in the early 20th century, the Moriori Genocide in the Chatham Islands, Lorde Howe Island, and the Vezo and the Bajau of Madagascar and Borneo.

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

Following our previous discussion on re-imagining how to think of phenotypical and physical differences in human populations, we talk about the prehistoric dispersal the human species in Altera, which closely follows the real world. Understanding these early waves of migration. going from the paleolithic to even the pre-modern period, helps us understand contemporary population admixtures. Other topics covered: population extinction events, founder effects, the Southern Dispersal Route, the possible origins of humans in the a paleo-wetlands of Zambia in southern Africa, Coastal Migration, the hypothesized connection of prehistoric connections between the Nivkh and peoples of the Pacific Northwest, the Inuit and Paleo-eskimos, the debunked Solutrean hypothesis, the expansion of Austronesian peoples, the Negritos and ancient population shifts in the insular Southeast Asia, the timing of the arrival of dingos in Australia, ancient Indian ancestries among Australian aboriginals, new discoveries of ancient humans and the Out of Africa theory.

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

This is the first of a series of talks we have to address the idea of the physical differences of human populations in Altera, mainly on shared ancestral lineages and populations being made up of admixtures. The discussions are meant to help compliment the "Old Kin and Humankind" map graphic. In this first discussion, we look at the 24 ancestral clusters identified for Altera, which are informed by real scientific genetic structure studies, in order to surface the fascinating connections but also differences contained within all of us. Other topics covered: race, categorizing population make-up, problems with sampling human populations, the changing face of America, demographic shifts and multiculturalism, genetic "purity" and Indigenous Australians, "African Pygmies" or the Twa and similar rainforest hunter-gathers, the "Negrito" peoples of Southeast Asia, and Masaman's ethno-racial map.

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

Uncut, extra long: this episode covers the spread of humankind through the lens of culture, going from Altera's centres of origin to transoceanic contact. We use the Confluences of Human Culture adornment piece on the Chorographical Depictions world map as a talking piece, ranging from the overstated "cradles of civilization" to more understudied areas of independent crop domestication in the far corners of the world. Other topics covered: the Norse discovery of Vinland, the sweet potato theory of trans-Pacific contact, and other pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories, as well as the connection of pirogues and caravels, the Bantu ironworking tradition, Austronesian expansion across two oceans, domestications of the Sahel, the Eastern Woodlands agricultural complex, Australian bush tucker and potential food domestications, the Ainu as oceangoing sailors, Papua as a cradle of civilization, and deltas and river bifurcation!

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

This is a special episode following the Sinosphere themed map posted on Reddit last week. We get right into explaining the layers of meaning and decisions made regarding this epic map. Other topics covered: cardinal directions, wind directions, Suzhou numerals, Chinese classics like Siku Quanshu and the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Matteo Ricci and early Chinese cartography, Sinocentrism and cultural myopia, the Lanfang Republic and the Peranakan konsi as a kind of commonwealth, Ainu itaomachips, euligan or candlefish grease, and mammoth-riding Yukaghirs!  

Tired of learning geography and history in an uninspired world? Atlas Altera is a creative exercise that repaints the world while going hardcore on real geography, anthropology, linguistics, and history.

From episode 3's topic on chorography, we explore the idea of globalization and historical understandings of cultural exchange in relation to imperialism and annihilation. Other topics covered: Augusto Pinochet, French Algeria and Albert Camus, deontology and classical liberalism, gunboat diplomacy, neoliberalism and economic globalization, alter globalization, Isaiah Berlin and the two concepts of liberty, the ideals of Enlightenment in the era of postmodernism, cosmopolitanism and global citizenship, culture in the era of atomization and individualism, culture as the backdrop to our stories, culture as flux, tattooing, modernity and the quest for material wealth, the East Asian Tigers experience, Kemalism and political Islam, Orhan Pamuk, Adam Smith, Samuel Huntington and the Clash of Civilizations, and solfoods like snails, witchetty grub, and sandworms!

Following episode 2, we go even more theoretical on Atlas Altera, focusing on the antiquated form of regional geography known as chorography. Other topics covered: the history of geography, territory and conquest, landscape and romanticist landscape paintings, possibilism and environmental determinism, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Sauer, Vidal de la Blache, Friedrich Ratzel, Nazi geography and lebensraum, French imperialism, Wade Davis, and Jared Diamond.