Continental influx and pervasive matrilocality in Iron Age Britain.

ABSTRACT: Roman writers found the relative empowerment of Celtic women remarkable¹. In southern Britain, the Late Iron Age Durotriges tribe often buried women with substantial grave goods². Here we analyse 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

SUBMITTER: Cassidy LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11779635 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature