Changes

After initial innovations in the Chalcolithic era in the Near East, we do not see major development in navigation again until the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. After this period of development, navigation technologies once again stall until the end of the 1st millennium AD. Technologies enabled greater and easier movement across the seas over the millennia. Furthermore, as changes in technologies became progressively more rapid in the late Medieval period, it was shipping and navigation that made innovation and spread of knowledge easier, as now easy movements across the oceans and across vast distances allowed great wealth and ideas to spread far. These developments though first needed technologies and understanding of navigation that took thousands of years to accumulate before these later developments became possible.