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Published online 19 May 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.839
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Social networking gets medieval
Researchers give a French province the 'Facebook' treatment.
The popularity of Internet sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace might make social networking seem relatively modern. But a team of French researchers has challenged this idea by trawling through medieval documents to create the oldest detailed social network ever constructed.
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The website of the project is http://graphcomp.univ-tlse2.fr/ It is still in french but an english version is in construction. Historic sources of the work and maps of the social networks will be soon on line from this website.