Analyzing Magdalenian social networks in their environmental context

This research argues for a refocus of the study of prehistoric social networks that involves contextualizing the inter-site links often interpreted as indicators of social interactions between different groups. It focuses on the social networks created during the 3 sub-periods of the Magdalenian in the Cantabrian and Dordogne regions, and visible through similarities of portable art representations. It uses Species Distribution Modeling and Maximum Classification Likelihood on faunal presence data to reconstruct prehistoric biomes and to contextualize the networks reconstructed through art analysis. It demonstrates the potential of mapping recreated networks onto reconstructed biomes and of identifying the linked sites' foraging and minimal band territories to distinguish between a single group's local mobility and inter-group social alliances. Looking at the differences in contextualized networks over time also allows understanding human-environment interactions, and how these affected human social organization in the Upper Paleolithic.