Relationships between recent Magdalenian societies in Cantabrian Spain, through the technical and formal analysis of frontal representations of Ibex

In connection with the question of mobility and contacts between Magdalenian societies, this paper presents the preliminary results of a review of one of the classic themes in late Magdalenian art: the representations of zoomorphs, particularly ibex, viewed from the front, found essentially in portable art. These motifs are known in both Cantabrian Spain and southern France, and in archaeological literature are often regarded as evidence of long-distance relationships between Magdalenian groups. The direct analysis of practically all the known examples in Cantabrian Spain has provided a more precise knowledge of the theme at technical and formal levels, and has introduced the technological approach for the first time in northern Spain. The study of the artistic record, from the chaîne opératoire viewpoint, has succeeded in identifying and ordering the sequence of movements followed in the process of producing the images. The technical and formal choices made by the artists reflect cultural traditions. The identification and comparison of these traditions in a certain geographical area can determine whether or not the same tradition was shared by different groups and is therefore a way to know the mobility and degree of interaction among Magdalenian societies. The homogeneity seen in the sequence of actions producing the representations of ibex seems to indicate that the artists in Cantabrian Spain shared the same savoir-faire, and the little information currently available about this type of representation on the other side of the Pyrenees is in harmony with the results from Spain. However, greater variability is seen from the formal point of view, and the significance of this is hard to determine in the light of the present data.