Search

Showing results for

Content type

Article Type

Topics

Tags

Blackbeard the Pirate engraving
Photo

Blackbeard the Pirate

View Image
Pirate William Dampier's shipboard artist carefully recorded the species that Dampier found new and unusual.
Photo

Australian Fish and Cuttlefish

View Image
eskimos land a skin boat in the ice
Photo

Siberian Yupik Eskimo Skin Boat

View Image
a part human, part horse, part fish on an early atlas
Photo

Mythical Creatures on Maps

View Image
After leaving Australia, Dampier and his men reached the western coast of New Guinea on New Year’s Day 1700. There Dampier observed birds that he had never seen before, like the “stately land-fowl” shown here.
Photo

New Guinea Birds

View Image
As soon as Dampier set foot in Australia, he began making observations and collecting specimens of plants, which he carefully pressed between the pages of books to be studied by the “ingenious” and “curious” upon his return to England. As Dampier conducted his investigations, his artist made detailed sketches like these.
Slideshow

Discoveries in Australia and New Guinea

See the Full Slideshow
a seal skin kayak
Photo

Yup'ik Kayak

View Image
Explore the different cultures of the territory between the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The area is home to over 150,000 Indigenous residents, whose diverse languages and cultures are both a link to history and the foundation for contemporary lives.
Photo

Smithsonian Alaska Native Collections

View Image
The arrows show the direction of ocean currents recorded by William Dampier while crossing “La Grande Mer du Sud”—the Pacific Ocean.
Photo

Pacific Ocean Currents

View Image
As Dampier studied the plants he encountered in Australia, he wrote that they were “for the most part unlike any I had seen elsewhere.” In fact, nearly all the plants Dampier observed were entirely unknown to botanists at that time.
Photo

More Australian Plants

View Image
These rattles from British Columbia were used during shamanistic performances.
Photo

Ceremonial Rattles

View Image
Fish spears and traps placed in rivers are traditional ways of catching salmon.
Photo

Catching Salmon

View Image