Geneticist Lara Cassidy wasn’t surprised to find several generations of the same family buried in an Iron Age cemetery near Dorset, England. But she was quite surprised to find most of them were related along a single matrilineal line.

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,

Some scholars have suggested that the Romans exaggerated the liberties of women on the British Isles to imply that this was a more uncivilized society. However, this genetic and skeletal evidence implies that women were likely influential and could have been shaping group identity through matrilineal lines.

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

Women were at the centre of social networks in Iron Age British Celtic communities, research in this week’s Nature suggests. The analysis of 2,000-year-old DNA reveals evidence for matrilocal Celtic societies,

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.