It's the Mental Geography

"Imagine being one of our Paleolithic ancestors and having to navigate the relative safety of the cave and all the presumably more dangerous places around it for food, forest bathing, and whatever else was on your cave-person mind. Your life would depend on having a detailed mental map of as much of the area around your dwelling as possible. If you were nomadic,"

"Lacking any form of physical mapping, it would all be internal. No road maps, no GPS, just an ability to recognize where you've been and where you were headed, your life literally depending on being able to recognize the signs of other animals, whether prey or preying on you, plants with both benign and dangerous qualities, and the quicksand that loomed just before those distant hills where you could take shelter for the night."

"That human experience, stretching over millennia, would place paramount importance on your ability to think spatially, to place events, activities, and memories in three-dimensional maps with dangers and opportunities clearly labeled at every turn. Moreover, you would need to be constantly updating those maps of the world around you. And you would further need, since the only way you and your fellow ancient humans could survive was to work in groups, to be constantly updating your sense of how your whole group worked together,"

Ancient humans relied on detailed internal spatial maps to navigate environments, locate resources, avoid predators, and find shelter. Nomadic lifestyles increased the importance of accurate mental mapping. Without physical maps or GPS, humans learned to recognize environmental signs, dangerous plants, and terrain hazards. Continuous updating of three-dimensional maps preserved group safety and coordinated communal responses during crises. These spatial skills became foundational cognitive tools. Modern brains retain those spatial capacities and apply them to learning and memory. Deliberate spatial strategies can organize information, improve comprehension, and enhance recall when teaching or structuring ideas.

Read at Psychology Today