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Inter-group relations

Considering most Neanderthal artifacts were sourced no more than 5 km (3.1 mi) from the main settlement, Hayden considered it unlikely these bands interacted very often, and mapping of the Neanderthal brain and their small group size and population density could indicate that they had a reduced ability for inter-group interaction and trade. However, a few Neanderthal artefacts in a settlement could have originated 20, 30, 100 and 300 km (12.5, 18.5, 60 and 185 mi) away. Based on this, Hayden also speculated that macro-bands formed which functioned much like those of the low-density hunter-gatherer societies of the Western Desert of Australia. Macro-bands collectively encompass 13,000 km (5,000 sq mi), with each band claiming 1,200–2,800 km (460–1,080 sq mi), maintaining strong alliances for mating networks or to cope with leaner times and enemies. Similarly, British anthropologist Eiluned Pearce and Cypriot archaeologist Theodora Moutsiou speculated that Neanderthals were possibly capable of forming geographically expansive ethnolinguistic tribes encompassing upwards of 800 people, based on the transport of obsidian up to 300 km (190 mi) from the source compared to trends seen in obsidian transfer distance and tribe size in modern hunter-gatherers. However, according to their model Neanderthals would not have been as efficient at maintaining long-distance networks as modern humans, probably due to a significantly lower population. Hayden noted an apparent cemetery of six or seven individuals at La Ferrassie, France, which, in modern humans, is typically used as evidence of a corporate group which maintained a distinct social identity and controlled some resource, trading, manufacturing and so on. La Ferrassie is also located in one of the richest animal-migration routes of Pleistocene Europe.