A Re-examination of Magdalenian Social Organization Ten Years Later

Summary

A decade ago this author completed a synthesis of information about the circulation of exotic lithic raw materials, items of personal ornamentation, and portable decorated objects across western Europe during the Magdalenian ca. 17,000 to 12,000 B.P. Tests of hypotheses about the relationship between population density and visual display suggested that population density was probably not the sole driving force behind the types and intensities of visual displays used by generations of Magdalenian people. Rather, the unique social dynamics surrounding human colonization of new areas likely played a key role in people’s choices about the kinds of materials and decorative forms they used. Furthermore, differences in social organization—specifically degrees of enforcement of social equality—probably contributed to the regionally and temporally diverse patterns of visual displays seen in the archaeological record. This paper uses information gleaned from the last 10 years of Magdalenian research to re-examine the author’s original interpretations of Magdalenian social organization. By reflecting on how our understanding of Magdalenian lifeways has and has not changed over the last decade, we can identify vital future directions of investigation.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Magdalenian social geographies in Western Europe   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage