We evolved a specialized brain structure called the hippocampus just for remembering the spatial location of things. This was tremendously important throughout our evolutionary history for keeping track of where food and water could be found, not to mention the location of various dangers. The hippocampus is such an important center for place memory that it’s found even in rats and mice. A squirrel burying nuts? It’s his hippocampus that helps him retrieve nuts several months later from hundreds of different locations.
