Cassidy, L.M., Russell, M., Smith, M. et al. Continental influx and pervasive matrilocality in Iron Age Britain. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08409-6
Abstract: Roman writers found the relative empowerment of Celtic women remarkable. In southern Britain, the Late Iron Age Durotriges tribe often buried women with substantial grave goods. Here we analyze 57 ancient genomes from Durotrigian burial sites and find an extended kin group centred around a single maternal lineage, with unrelated (presumably inward migrating) burials being predominantly male. Such a matrilocal pattern is undescribed in European prehistory, but when we compare mitochondrial haplotype variation among European archaeological sites spanning six millennia, British Iron Age cemeteries stand out as having marked reductions in diversity driven by the presence of dominant matrilines. Patterns of haplotype sharing reveal that British Iron Age populations form fine-grained geographical clusters with southern links extending across the channel to the continent. Indeed, whereas most of Britain shows majority genomic continuity from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age, this is markedly reduced in a southern coastal core region with persistent cross-channel cultural exchange. This southern core has evidence of population influx in the Middle Bronze Age but also during the Iron Age. This is asynchronous with the rest of the island and points towards a staged, geographically granular absorption of continental influence, possibly including the acquisition of Celtic languages.
The NYTimes has an article reporting the find: Becky Ferreira, Celtic Women Held Sway in ‘Matrilocal’ Societies, Jan. 15. 2025.
The liberties of Celtic women have been a hot topic for thousands of years. Roman writers were scandalized by reports of their sexual freedoms, which insocicluded taking multiple husbands. Cartimandua and Boudica, early female leaders in Britain, demonstrated that women could reach the highest levels of power, commanding armies and heading tribes.
Archaeological evidence also hints at flexible gender dynamics that varied widely depending on local traditions. For instance, Celtic women were sometimes buried with luxurious grave goods, like jewelry and mirrors, a marker of high status. Patrilocality, whereby women live near their in-laws, is still far more culturally common, but female-centric societies are not as unheard-of as they were even a decade ago.
“It’s a generational paradigm shift,” said Rachel Pope, an associate professor in European prehistory at the University of Liverpool with expertise in matrilocality who was not involved in the study. “It’s partly a trend in archeology more generally, where we have returned to data and material evidence to lead narrative, rather than imposing narratives that confirm our own biases.”
In other words, scientists are working on big data projects, such as genome analysis, to pin down patterns in social structures with a level of accuracy that cannot be obtained from other sources like the accounts of classical writers with their own agendas and biases
