PROOF OF MATRIARCHY
Ancient genomes reveal an Iron Age society centred on women
A groundbreaking study finds evidence that land was inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wife’s community. This is believed to be the first time such a system has been documented in European pre-history.
An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has joined forces with archaeologists from Bournemouth University to decipher the structure of British Iron Age society, finding evidence of female political and social empowerment.
The researchers seized upon a rare opportunity to sequence DNA from many members of a single community. They retrieved over 50 ancient genomes from a set of burial grounds in Dorset, southern England, in use before and after the Roman Conquest of AD 43. The results revealed that this community was centred around bonds of female-line descent.
Dr Lara Cassidy, Assistant Professor in Trinity’s Department of Genetics, led the study that has been published in leading international journal Nature today. She said: “This was the cemetery of a large kin group. We reconstructed a family tree with many different branches and found most members traced their maternal lineage back to a single woman, who would have lived centuries before. In contrast, relationships through the father’s line were almost absent.
“This tells us that husbands moved to join their wives’ communities upon marriage, with land potentially passed down through the female line. This is the first time this type of system has been documented in European prehistory and it predicts female social and political empowerment.
“It’s relatively rare in modern societies, but this might not always have been the case.”
Incredibly, the team found that this type of social organisation, termed “matrilocality”, was not just restricted to Dorset. They sifted through data from prior genetic surveys of Iron Age Britain and, although sample numbers from other cemeteries were smaller, they saw the same pattern emerge again and again.
Dan Bradley, Professor of Population Genetics in Trinity’s Department of Genetics, and a co-author of the study, added: “Across Britain we saw cemeteries where most individuals were maternally descended from a small set of female ancestors. In Yorkshire, for example, one dominant matriline had been established before 400 BC. To our surprise, this was a widespread phenomenon with deep roots on the island.”
Iron Age cemeteries with well-preserved burials are rare in Britain. Dorset is an exception, due to the unique burial customs of the people who lived there, named as the “Durotriges” by the Romans. The researchers sampled DNA from a site near the village of Winterborne Kingston, nicknamed “Duropolis”, which archaeologists from Bournemouth University have been excavating since 2009. Previously, the team had observed the more richly furnished Durotrigan burials to be those of women.
Dr Miles Russell, the excavation’s director and co-author on the study, commented: “Beyond archaeology, knowledge of Iron Age Britain has come primarily from the Greek and Roman writers, but they are not always considered the most trustworthy. That said, their commentary on British women is remarkable in light of these findings. When the Romans arrived, they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power. Two of the earliest recorded rulers were queens – Boudica and Cartimandua – who commanded armies.
“It’s been suggested that the Romans exaggerated the liberties of British women to paint a picture of an untamed society. But archaeology, and now genetics, implies women were influential in many spheres of Iron Age life. Indeed, it is possible that maternal ancestry was the primary shaper of group identities.”
Anthropologist Dr Martin Smith, one of the project’s bone specialists, added: “These results give us a whole new way of looking at the burials we are uncovering with our students. Rather than simply seeing a set of skeletons, hidden aspects of these people’s lives and identities come into view as mothers, husbands, daughters and so on. We also see these folk had deep knowledge of their own ancestry – multiple marriages between distant branches of this family occurred and were possibly favoured, but close inbreeding was avoided.”
Echoing the writings of Julius Caesar, the researchers further uncovered a footprint of Iron Age migration into coastal southern England, which had gone undetected in prior genetic studies. This will add more fuel to debates surrounding the arrival of Celtic language in Britain.
Dr Cassidy explained: “Migration into Britain during the later Bronze Age has previously been detected, leading some to hypothesise that Celtic language arrived during this period. But our results point towards substantial cross-channel mobility during the Iron Age as well. Narrowing down the arrival time of Celtic will be difficult. Indeed, it is quite possible that Celtic languages were introduced to Britain on more than one occasion.”
Excavating a Late Iron Age Durotriges burial at Winterborne Kingston (c) Bournemouth University.
Credit
Bournemouth University
Journal
Nature
DOI
Society centered around women in UK
during Iron Age: scientists
Agence France-Presse
January 15, 2025
The Durotriges tribe occupied England's southern central coastal region between 100 BC and AD 100, giving Dorset its name (BEN STANSALL/AFP)
Scientists analyzing 2,000-year-old DNA have revealed that a Celtic society in the southern UK during the Iron Age was centered around women, backing up accounts from Roman historians, a study said Wednesday.
When historians such as Tacitus and Cassius wrote about Rome conquering Britain from around AD 44 to 84, they described women holding positions of power.
These include the famous warrior queen Boudica, who started an uprising against Roman occupation, sacking and burning several cities including Londinium -- which would one day become London. There was also Cartimandua, the 1st-century queen of the Brigantes people in northern England.
Julius Caesar, in his account of the Gallic Wars written more than more than century earlier, also described Celtic women participating in public affairs, exercising political influence -- and having more than one husband.
"When the Romans arrived, they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power," said Miles Russell, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University and co-author of the new study in Nature.
Some had doubted these accounts, suggesting "that the Romans exaggerated the liberties of British women to paint a picture of an untamed society," he told AFP.
"But archaeology, and now genetics, implies women were influential in many spheres of Iron Age life," he said.
"Indeed, it is possible that maternal ancestry was the primary shaper of group identities."
- Men moved on, women stayed put -
For the study, the team of researchers analyzed more than 50 genomes extracted from burial sites in the village of Winterborne Kingston in southern England's Dorset county, which was populated before and after the Roman conquest.
Iron Age cemeteries with well-preserved burial sites are rare in Britain, perhaps because the dead were often cremated, stripped of their flesh and organs, or simply "deposited in wetlands", the researchers wrote.
However the Durotriges tribe, which occupied the southern central coastal region of England between 100 BC and AD 100 -- and gave their name to Dorset -- were an exception, burying their dead in cemeteries.
Excavations carried out at these sites since 2009 had already yielded some clues about the high social status women held in the tribe.
The "well-appointed graves across the Dorset Iron Age" containing drinking vessels, mirrors, beads and other goods were all female -- except for one that included a sword, said Russell, who led the excavations.
The DNA analysis showed that most of the people buried at the site were related through their maternal line, going "back to a single woman, who would have lived centuries before", said lead study author Lara Cassidy of Trinity College Dublin.
However there were almost no connections down the paternal line.
"This tells us that husbands moved to join their wives' communities upon marriage, with land potentially passed down through the female line," Cassidy said in a statement.
Societies centered around women -- which ethnographers call a "matrilocality" -- are rare throughout this period of history.
Yet the researchers trawled through previous research and "found signatures of matrilocality in a number of cemeteries across Britain dating to the Middle and Late Iron Age," from around 400 BC onwards, Cassidy said.
"However, it is quite possible this system was also common in the early Iron Age or perhaps even earlier."
© Agence France-Presse
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