Female family ties were at the heart of social networks in Celtic society in Britain before the Roman invasion, a new analysis suggests. Genetic evidence from a late Iron Age cemetery shows that women were closely related while unrelated men tended to come into the community from elsewhere,

DNA analysis suggests Iron Age societies in Britain were built around women rather than men.

An in-depth genetic analysis of 2,000-year-old genomes has revealed that women were at the center of social networks in British Celtic communities during the Iron Age. Women were potentially very socially and politically empowered and shaped what their society looked like.

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.