Scientists have found evidence of a matrilineal society in the southwest of England after analyzing DNA from human remains found at a rare Iron Age burial site. The findings represent a major milestone in understanding ancient Celtic culture and the first-known instance of a women-led society in Europe.
Archaeologists have uncovered remains of the Celtic Durotriges tribe at a site near the village of Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, England, which date back to before the Roman conquest in 43 C.E. The group occupied the area from around 100 B.C.E to 100 C.E. and, unusually for the age of the remains that have been unearthed there, many of their skeletons remain intact. This is partly owed to their burial in chalk earth. Most other societies in Britain during the Iron Age either cremated bodies or buried them in wetlands, meaning they were not preserved.
A new DNA analysis by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and Bournemouth University focused on 55 of the Durotrigans unearthed at the site. It has shown that some sequences of mitrochondrial DNA (mtDNA) would reappear frequently throughout this sample. Since mtDNA is only inherited from the mother, being passed to offspring via the egg cell, the researchers were able to conclude that some two-thirds of the humans they tested were descended from the same female ancestor. The findings are the subject of a new paper published by Nature on January 15.
A dig at an Iron Age burial site in southwest England has revealed evidence of a women-led society. Photo courtesy Bournemouth University.
“My jaw dropped,” Lara Cassidy, a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, told the New Scientist. “This was a clear signature of matrilocality, or husbands moving to live with their wives’ families—a pattern we’d never seen before in prehistoric Europe.”
Researchers would normally expect to discover societies structured according to patrilocality, meaning that once a woman is married she moves to her male partner’s community. The finding therefore prompted Cassidy and her team to compare their results with a larger genetic survey of human remains from Britain and Europe during the Iron Age period, between 800 B.C.E and 43 C.E. She found that several more burial sites across the country also showed evidence of societies that descended from a small group of female ancestors.
This bodes well for the Iron Age women who were part of these societies. They likely enjoyed greater independence and less reliance on men or their families for survival than they would have in a patrilocal society. The idea that Durotrigan women in particular had high status is backed up by the finding that they were more likely than their male peers to be buried with valuable items.
A dig at an Iron Age burial site in southwest England has revealed evidence of a women-led society. Photo courtesy Bournemouth University.
“Matrilocality typically co-occurs with cultural practices that benefit women and keeps them embedded in their family support networks,” said Cassidy. “Men typically still dominate formal positions of authority, but women can wield huge influence through their strong networks of matrilineal relatives and their central role in the local economy.”
The structure of small societies likely changed after the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 C.E. The study in Nature notes how some Roman writers who visited Britain and recounted their experiences for readers back home about Celtic societies emphasized that their women were unusually empowered, although it had previously been assumed that these descriptions may have been exaggerated. The paper also notes that two of the earliest known rulers in Britain were women; these were Cartimandua, leader of the Brigantes tribe, and Boudica of the Iceni, who led a famous uprising against the Roman conquerers around 60 C.E.
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