Scientists from Trinity College and Bournemouth University collaborated to learn about the societies of Iron Age Celts and Britain.
Geneticists from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and archaeologists from Bournemouth University in England worked together on the study, and they were surprised to find that Iron Age Celts were a matrilocal society. Matrilocal societies are ones where the man goes to live in the village of his wife. Such societies are not common in human history, with the Iron Age being unexceptional. The research published in the journal Nature looked into genetics and archaeological finds to confirm that women were the backbone of Celtic Britain.
The significance of the Iron Age Celtic society’s matrilocal norms
The course of human history has been heavily influenced by marriage and where people chose to live once they tied the knot. Family ties were extremely important as they influenced the societal roles of the people in a place since trades and lands were all passed on through lineage.
“For the vast majority of human history,” said Lara Cassidy, a geneticist at Trinity College, “societies were centered around ties of kinship, so you’re deciding whose family you’re going to live with.”
Most societies throughout history were patrilocal societies, meaning that the wives went to live where the husband lived. The British Celts being matrilocal is a rarity not often seen in humanity’s history and has never been found to be the case in that period.
“It’s a really rare pattern,” said Cassidy. “Never seen before in European prehistory, to have so many people all related through the female line. It’s adding to that pile of evidence that women were able to wield quite a lot of social and political influence in these societies.”
The matrilocality of the Iron Age Celts is the first such instance to be found. However, historians and scientists alike have believed this to be the standard for societies during certain periods of history, making this discovery proof of that belief.
Scientists have been able to find out whether civilizations throughout the ages were patrilocal or matrilocal through genetics and archaeology. They look at the burial sites of people from the period they are investigating and compare the lineages to determine who moved where. Archaeology supports this by uncovering the sites and observing details that could be indicative of the societal structure of the villages and cities that once were.
“When most of the men are sharing the exact same Y chromosome,” said Cassidy. “Which is passed from father to son to father to son, that means they all descend from a recent male ancestor through the male line.”
Patrilocality is thought to have been harder on women than matrilocality was on men, as there were important emotional ties that had to be cut for a woman to move to a different place.
“It separates them from their families,” said Cassidy. “You’ve lost your childhood support network. You’re coming in as a relative stranger.”
The burial site where the matrilocal Celt remains were found was in the south of England. It was once the home of a tribe known as the Durotriges who lived there from about 100 BC to 100 AD. Cassidy and the research team studied 50 different samples of DNA and were shocked to find that they had maternal lineage.
“And that’s when I was like, ‘Oh my God,'” said Cassidy. “This is a community where a lot of people are related along the female line. This is matrilocality and it’s rare. I was not expecting that.”
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
