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

An ancient cemetery reveals a Celtic tribe that lived in England 2,000 years ago and that was organized around maternal lineages, according to a DNA analysis.

Ancient DNA reveals that during the Iron Age, women in ancient Celtic societies were at the center of their social networks — unlike previous eras of prehistory.

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.

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.

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,