ABSTRACT
Scientific delimitation of biogeographic regions on small-scale maps of North America may be said to have begun in 1830 with the publication of a strange untitled map accompanying a paper "On the geographical distribution of plants." From at least protohistoric times onwards, Indians and Inuits throughout the continent are known to have made what from contact times onwards Euro-Americans called maps. Content analysis of all extant Indian maps would probably reveal that for the continent as a whole hydrology was represented most frequently and vegetation least frequently. Knowledge of the existence and position of the biogeographic transitions was vital to the wellbeing of Indians and the success of the fur traders. Indian maps differed from post-Renaissance European maps in two fundamental respects: geometrical structure and the selection and ordering of information content. Eighteenth-century attempts to represent transitions by means of boundary lines were perforce crude approximations and relating the boundaries to modern maps is exceedingly difficult.
