Social Networks and Cultural Geographies in the Magdalenian: evidence from personal ornaments

Summary

The Magdalenian comprises one of the richest and most complex archaeological records known to archaeology, with extensive social networks stretching across the landscape. Large quantities of ‘exotic’ goods, such as objects in stone, mineral or shell found hundreds of kilometers from the material source, attest to the wide-ranging mobility of these groups. On occasion, however, the distances are so great that archaeologists attribute them to complex networks of interaction, procurement and exchange between separate groups spread across the landscape. This paper details an attempt to further our understanding of these social geographies through analysis of personal ornaments.

Typological and technological aspects of the ornament record from Franco-Cantabria will be interrogated for insights into the nature, extent and organization of social networks, such as the degree of regionalism within the study region and whether that changes, and the geographic axes of cultural and material diffusion across the landscape. Additionally, a geochemical analysis of strontium and oxygen stable isotopes from a number of perforated animal teeth will further our understanding of both the mobility of these groups, and the patterns of ornament exchange across the Magdalenian social landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage