A groundbreaking study reveals evidence that, in Iron Age Britain, land inheritance followed the female line, with husbands relocating to live within their wives' communities. This marks the first documented instance of such a system in European prehistory.

An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has joined forces with archaeologists from Bournemouth University to decipher the structure of British Iron Age society,

Scientists analyzing 2,000-year-old DNA have revealed that a Celtic society in the southern U.K. during the Iron Age was centered around women, a study said.

The social fabric of Iron Age Britain, spanning roughly from 800 BC to AD 100, has long puzzled historians and archaeologists. Recent breakthroughs in genetic analysis are now shedding light on the lives and social structures of these ancient communities.

Researchers have uncovered genetic evidence suggesting that ancient Celtic societies in Iron Age Britain were matrilineal and matrilocal, with women holding status and influence.

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.

Julius Caesar, in his account of the Gallic Wars written more than more than century earlier, also described Celtic women participating in public affairs, exercising political influence — and having more than one husband.

Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that an Iron Age community in Dorset, England, was centered around bonds of female-line descent.

The site belonged to a group the Romans named the “Durotriges,” researchers said, and this ethnic group had other settlements, including a site near Dorset nicknamed “Duropolis” by the archaeologists who work there.

DNA analysis indicates that a Celtic tribe in Iron Age Britain was matrilocal, meaning men relocated to live with women’s families.

Echoing the writings of Julius Caesar, the researchers further uncovered a footprint of Iron Age migration into coastal southern England, which had gone undetected in prior genetic studies.

DNA extracted from 57 individuals buried in a 2,000-year-old cemetery provides evidence of a "matrilocal" community in Iron Age Britain, a new study suggests