When the Romans first entered the British Isles, they found a land ruled by warrior queens and other high-status women – or at least, that’s how Julius Caesar and other witnesses described the situation in this new and strange territory. And while modern historians have tended to distrust these ancient Roman accounts as over-exaggerated and inaccurate, a new analysis of 2,000-year-old DNA suggests that women really were the big dogs in prehistoric Britain.
The idea that these ancient societies may have revolved around females has previously been supported by finds in Celtic cemeteries in Dorset, southern England, where a tribe known as the Durotriges lived from roughly 100 BCE to 100 CE. At these sites, female burials typically contain the most lavish grave goods, suggesting that women may have held positions of political, military, and social influence.
Building on these previous discoveries, researchers have now sequenced the DNA of 55 individuals from the Durotrigian burial site of Winterborne Kingston, along with two more from other nearby cemeteries. To gain a sense of how these ancient societies were structured, the study authors analyzed levels of diversity in mitochondrial DNA – which is inherited only from the mother – as well as the Y chromosome, which is transmitted from father to son.
These two portions of the genome can therefore be used to trace a person’s maternal and paternal genealogies, and revealed that more than two-thirds of those buried at Winterborne Kingston descend from a single, previously unknown maternal lineage.
“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,” explained study author Dr Lara Cassidy in a statement. “In contrast, relationships through the father’s line were almost absent,” as evidenced by high levels of Y-chromosome diversity among the cemetery’s men. Such a finding suggests that these men all came from elsewhere, while the women were local.
“This tells us that husbands moved to join their wives’ communities upon marriage, with land potentially passed down through the female line,” says Cassidy. Such an arrangement is known as matrilocality, and is in contrast to the patrilocal societies that until now were assumed to be the norm throughout most of prehistory.
“This is the first time this type of system has been documented in European prehistory and it predicts female social and political empowerment,” adds Cassidy. “It’s relatively rare in modern societies, but this might not always have been the case.”
This Durotrigian was buried with jewelry including an amulet depicting military victory.
Image credit: Bournemouth University
Wondering how widespread matrilocal societies may have been in the ancient world, the researchers then examined the genomes of individuals from 156 cemeteries across Europe, spanning from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Fascinatingly, they found evidence of matrilocality at six different sites, all from Iron Age England.
“Across Britain we saw cemeteries where most individuals were maternally descended from a small set of female ancestors,” explained study author Professor Dan Bradley. “In Yorkshire, for example, one dominant matriline had been established before 400 [BCE]. To our surprise, this was a widespread phenomenon with deep roots on the island.”
Bringing things full circle, the researchers say their findings provide credence to the tales told by the likes of Julius Caesar and other Roman authors. According to these reports, the earliest British rulers were women, including the legendary warrior queens Boudicca and Cartimandua, both of whom kicked a significant chunk of Roman butt in the first century CE.
“It’s been suggested that the Romans exaggerated the liberties of British women to paint a picture of an untamed society,” explains excavation director Dr Miles Russell. “But archaeology, and now genetics, implies women were influential in many spheres of Iron Age life.”
The study is published in the journal Nature.
Source Link: Celtic Women Ruled Iron Age Britain, 2,000-Year-Old DNA Reveals
