Movement

>> see Time [category: Social Studies Concepts]

Movement & Geography

Time, Distance, Communication & Movement

• time measure by distance
• defined by geography & distances
• technological advance is to overcome barriers to movement of geography and distance

Forms of Human Movement

• walking / running
  • Greece: marathona
  • Inca runners served to communicate across empire
• water
  • currents
  • paddle/ oars
  • sail
• animal propulsion
  • domestication of animals for transport
• mechanized propulsion

Animal Propulsion

• • horses
    • prior to domestication horses were hunted for food
  • cattle
  • camels
    • ability to cross large distances with heavy loads (25-30 miles / day)
    • ability to survive distances without water
      • related to metabolism and not the "hump" which is made of fat and provides energy (food) and not water
      • ability to withstand absence of water related to conserve water and to adjust its body temperature in order to avoid sweating
    • originally from the Americas: related to the Llama
    • sources:
      • How long can a camel go without water?
    • migrated to Asia where they were domesticated in central Asia
    • camels to Arabia
    • camels to Nile and Sahara/ Sub-Sahara Africa

Human-Powered Boats

• easiest movement by boats designed to flow with the current
  • Babylonian inflatable boats made of animal skin/ guts
• oars, paddles, etc.
  • review various forms
• Polynesian canoes and catamarans

Sail

• wind propulsion
• Egypt

Mechanized Transportation

• revolution in distance and time
• cultural diffusion accelerated
• steamboats
  • prior to steam boats, the Mississippi River provided transportation in one direction only, downstream. With steam, boats could journy upstream, which allowed for trade to flow both norht and south.
    • see [Steamboats of the Mississippi]
• railroads caused need for time zones
  • before the need to create regular schedules across great distances, time was measured locally by the position of the sun
  • with rapid movement by rail, the need for a comman, relative measurement of time became important in order to organize the rail system and its schedules: time zones were the solution, creating a single period of time across a large distance that could be calibrated against other time "zones"
• local rail / trolleys
• automobiles
• trucks
• airplanes

Communication & Time, Space & Distance

• • communication across distance was a function of movement
  • writing revolutionizes time by bringing distances together through communication across distance
  • with new forms of transportation, communication was speeded over time (horse, boat, sail, railroad, airplane, etc)
• modern communications revoluation
• speed of correspondences measured by distance (letter-writing)
• telegraph revolutionizes abiltity to send messagaes over distance instaneously
  • trans-Atlantic cable
    • origins of the Associated Press
  • Morse Code
  • photographs transmitted by telegraph
• telephone
  • transmission of voice over distance (still using wires)
• radio
  • transmission of voice or code over distance without wires
• television
  • transmission of moving or live images over distance without wires
• facsimile machines
  • ability to send copies of documents over telephone lines
• cellular phones
  • more practical than radio
• internet