How the Earth became a global concept
Our knowledge about the Earth was once fragmented, distinct and highly specific in place and time. Before large-scale meteorology, there were just discussions about the local weather. Prior to explanations about global magnetic patterns, the flickering of magnetic needles remained a mystery. Our understanding of great oceanic currents was hidden beneath descriptions of the flowing ocean surface. So how did this localised knowledge transform into an interest about the whole planet? “The basic question that RUTTER addressed was when — and how — did the whole Earth become a single, coherent, object for scientific research?” explains Henrique Leitão(opens in new window), a historian of science at Lisbon University. While not a new question, the EU-funded RUTTER approached it in completely new ways and came to some remarkable conclusions, says Leitão. The project took an interdisciplinary approach to explore the creation of the scientific ‘global Earth’, digging into the information kept in nautical rutters — old maritime guides — and ship logbooks. These documents revealed how ocean navigators of the 15th to 17th centuries experienced the Earth as scientific thinking evolved. “This corresponds to the period when stable and regular long distance maritime voyages crossed the earth’s oceans on a global, planetary scale,” notes Leitão. “In fact, no earlier documents contain information about the earth on a comparable worldwide scale.”
Studying ancient maritime documents
RUTTER drew on 15th to 17th century rutters, ship's logbooks and other technical materials associated with maritime voyages. These contain nautical information, as well as that about meteorology, geography, geophysics and the natural world. The team searched through Europe’s archives to find, classify and analyse over a thousand of these documents, then created a large catalogue as a basis for further research. This included a detailed study of the circulation of information in Early Modern Europe, based on formal channels, such as correspondence and books, as well as informal channels like diplomacy and spying.
Constructing the notion of a “global Earth”
The project revealed many previously known insights about the ancient transformation of knowledge, showing overall that the notion of a ‘global Earth’ was constructed through a long and complex process. This includes the onset of regular long-distance maritime voyages; the existence of ‘epistemic artifacts’ where observations of nature on a large, planetary scale, are recorded; and the creation of an institutional infrastructure supporting both the flow of information and the critical analysis of data.
Lessons for today’s globalised world
The analysis also revealed a surprising level of interchange between Western and local (mostly Arabic) sailors in the Indian Ocean, even when the general context was one of commercial rivalry or even open warfare. “The conclusion is not only that the importation of maritime, geographical, and hydrographical knowledge from extra-European sources into Europe was a real factor during the early modern period, but also that the construction of the concept of ‘global Earth’ has a multi-cultural dimension,” explains Leitão. Beyond the relevance of the results to the history of science, the team believes these results hold lessons related to today’s planet-wide concepts such as the ‘global environment’ or ‘global climate’. “Underlying these concepts lie critical notions of scale and globality,” says Leitão. “RUTTER shows these notions are the result of complex and non-linear historical trajectories.”
