Ancient Celtic society may have been led by women

January 16, 2025

Not simply Roman propaganda, new research has found that women were at the centre of social networks in Celtic communities and may have been influential in many spheres of Iron Age life.

“When the Romans arrived [in Britain], they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power,” says archaeologist Dr Miles Russell. “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 Russell and a team examined the DNA of 57 individuals from a burial site in Dorset, Southern England, dating from 100 BC to 100 AD, and the results suggest women were influential in many spheres of Iron Age life.

“Indeed, it is possible that maternal ancestry was the primary shaper of group identities,” says Russel.

They found a striking three quarters of individuals were related through their maternal line, indicating the community, named the “Durotriges” by the Romans, was a “matrilocal” society.

“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,” says Dr Lara Cassidy, assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and lead author of a paper describing the findings in Nature Communications.

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,” says Cassidy.

Patrilocal societies, in which married women move to their male partner’s community, are more commonly observed in European Neolithic, Copper and Bronze Age sites.

According to Cassidy, it is the first time a matrilocal system has been documented in European prehistory.

“It predicts female social and political empowerment,” says Cassidy. “It’s relatively rare in modern societies, but this might not always have been the case.”

Looking at data from previous genetic surveys of several other Iron Age burial sites revealed similar matrilocal patterns across Britain.

“We saw cemeteries where most individuals were maternally descended from a small set of female ancestors,” says Dan Bradley, professor of population genetics at Trinity and a co-author of the study.

“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.” 

According to a related Nature News & Views article, matrilocality often correlates with women having a central role in maintaining family or social networks and determining who inherits land. Previous excavations of Durotriges burials have also found the tribe buried women with valuable items.

Russell, who directed the excavation and co-authored the DNA study, says that 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,” he says. “That said, their commentary on British women is remarkable in light of these findings.”