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Prehistoric Britain

Durotriges Cemetery

by John De Cleene, 8 February 2025

Durotriges burial being unearched by an archaeologist

Researchers were able to state at the start of 2025 that they had recovered DNA from a cemetery near the village of Winterborne Kingston in the English county of Dorset.

The cemetery was in use between about 100 BC and AD 100, the period in which republican Roman interest in the form of Julius Caesar's two expeditionary incursions turned to conquest under Emperor Claudius.

The cemetery held fifty-five related individuals who apparently belonged to a society which was unusual for its time. According to a study which was published in the journal Nature, these people of the Durotriges tribe of what is now south-western England belonged to a matrilocal society.

Such a society differs from a matrilineal one in that women are the centre of food production and labour, as well as land inheritance. In a matrilineal society women have a higher status than men.

In this particular instance, women married outsiders, and the males left their homes to live with the women. This was the opposite of what normally occurred in the largely patrilocal society of Celtic Britain. Women usually left their family homes to live with their men.

Durotriges burial of a woman of some power
Iron age women tended to be buried along with items which were both valuable to them and valuable in general terms, with the Durotriges woman being the owner of the mirror shown in the sidebar


In those cases women tended to lose their status and suffer in various ways. Matrilocal practice instead made women central to the economic and social power of their community.

Unfortunately human remains from Iron Age Britain are rare, in this case because the region's acidic soil is not helpful when it comes to preservation. In addition, bodies often were burned rather than buried.

In previous sites at which human remains have been discovered, when the remains of a prestigious woman were found it was because she was buried as the wife of an important man.

Wider findings

Once archaeologists and archaeogeneticists were able to confirm their findings, they examined other burial sites and found ten more such burials in other communities which revealed the same maternal lineage characteristics.

These findings indicate that matrilocality and female leadership were far more widespread than was previously thought.

Most information which is now available on the subject of female power comes from classic Roman texts. These however can betray prejudices about the dangers which are supposedly presented by women who have too much power.

Such is the Roman conclusion in their portrayal of Boudicca, the fierce Iceni ruler who revolted against the Romans, and in their description of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes. The Romans observed that British women could inherit property and had the right to divorce.

Despite the new findings, evidence of female power remains relatively sparse.

For example, the Romans did not enjoy working with female rulers. Had there been very many, the Romans very likely would have noted the fact. Instead, they tended to view female leadership as strange and unusual.

Durotriges burial and belongings
This photo shows the arranged bones post-archaeology along with providing a better look at the mirror and also jewellery which included a Roman coin amulet which displayed a female

 

Main Sources

The Guardian - Iron age men left home to join wives' families (15 January 2025)

Washington Post - 2,000-year-old U.K. cemetery adds evidence on female-centric Celtic society (17 January 2025)

 

 

     
Text copyright © John De Cleene. An original feature for the History Files.