Spatial orientation in animals or in men requires memory as an essential feature and may be considered as a complex manifestation emerging from multiple brain structures with the hippocampus at "the crossroad". In this chapter, we present the underlying biological mechanisms of spatial behavior along a contextual and historical dimension, in an ethological perspective. We propose that study of spatial memory in mammals, and more precisely in laboratory rats, sheds some light on the development and evolution of episodic memory.