What is Exploration?
[[File:Portrett av Roald Amundsen crop.jpg|thumb|right|250px|{{Center|[[Roald Amundsen]], [[Norway|Norwegian]] explorer of the [[North pole|North]] and [[South pole]]s }}]] '''Exploration''' is the act of [[wikt:search|searching]] an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it. It involves the [[Discovery (observation)|discovery]] of new [[information]]. Human beings explore even when they have everything they need where they are.<ref name=MKB>{{cite web |url=http://boingboing.net/2012/12/20/how-humans-evolved-to-explore.html |title=How humans evolved to explore |author=Maggie Koerth-Baker |date=20 December 2012 |website= |publisher=BoingBoing |accessdate=3 May 2015}}</ref> They are the only [[mammal]] that does this. [[Neanderthal]]s existed for hundreds of thousands of years in [[Eurasia]].<ref name=MKB/> But their [[Range (biology)|range]] was [[wikt:limited|limited]] compared to modern humans. In less than 500,000 years humans have explored and spread out to all the [[continent]]s.<ref name=MKB/> Exploration had its most dramatic rise during the [[Age of Discovery]]. This is when [[Europe|European]] explorers [[Sailing|sailed]] and [[Cartography|charted]] much of the rest of the world. Humans have explored geographically even into [[outer space]]. They explore ideas, art, even the very nature of life.<ref name=WE>{{cite web |url=http://www.beyondthemap.ca/english/explore.html |title=Why Explore? |author= |website= |publisher=Maritime Museum of BC |accessdate=3 May 2015 |archive-date=22 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150422022014/http://beyondthemap.ca/english/explore.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> == Early historic explorations == ===Phoenicians=== The [[Phoenicia]]ns were a culture that existed in the coastal region of the [[Levant]] as early as the [[3rd millennium BC]].<ref name=GoreNGS>{{cite web |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/features/world/asia/lebanon/phoenicians-text.html |title=Who Were the Phoenicians? |author=Rick Gore |date=October 2004 |website= |publisher=Nat