Interconnected Magdalenian societies as revealed by the circulation of whale bone artefacts in the Pyreneo-Cantabrian region

International audienceCoastal adaptations of Palaeolithic foragers along the north Atlantic seaboard have received renewedattention in the last decade and include growing evidence for exploitation of whale bone by Late GlacialMagdalenian groups to the north of the Pyrenees. Here we present a systematic revision of Magdalenianosseous industries from the Cantabrian region designed to explore whether this phenomenon was morewidely shared by hunter-gatherer groups along the Atlantic coast of the northern Iberian Peninsula. Fiftyfourwhale bone objects were identified from 12 of the 64 sampled sites. Essentially represented by large,finished weapon elements (projectile points), these objects are primarily associated with the middlephase of the Cantabrian Magdalenian, and overlap slightly with the beginning its upper and probably theend of its lower phases. More broadly, the circulation of these objects evinces regular, long-distance (ca.600 km) communication networks operating on both sides of the current French and Spanish BasqueCountry between 17.8 and 15 cal ka BP. The structure of this network poses interesting questions concerningpotential social and/or economic interactions between Magdalenian groups from the Pyreneesand neighbouring Cantabrian region.We suggest that the use of whale bone by these particularly mobilehunter-gatherer groups for the production of hunting weapons was connected to the longer use-lifeafforded by the large size of this particular raw material. This choice potentially reflects attempts tooffset raw material transport costs by privileging their regular maintenance rather than the replacementof hunting weaponry. This growing body of evidence for the exploitation of marine resources during theMagdalenian further reinforces the Bay of Biscay being the backdrop to the emergence of the first regular,diversified and organized coastal economies at the end of the Last Glaciation