Kinship practices underpin all traditional societies, forming the basis for socially sanctioned reproductive unions, residence patterns and the inheritance of rights and property. Although the relationship between biological relatedness and kinship is not always straightforward, ancient DNA studies are increasingly used to examine the extent to which biological relatedness underpinned social constructs of kinship in prehistoric societies. Here, we report the analysis of genome-wide data for 534 individuals from the Arras Culture of Middle Iron Age northeast England (including 390 from Wetwang Slack, 100 from Pocklington, and 29 from Melton), finding evidence for communities with kinship systems structured along matrilineal lines. At Wetwang Slack, we reconstruct a 13-generation pedigree comprising 195 individuals structured around female-line connections: matrilineal transmissions greatly outnumbered patrilineal ones and male reproductive partners were largely absent from the cemetery, plausibly because they were buried in their own natal communities. Furthermore, the three main sites with robust sample sizes were characterised by non-overlapping dominant mitochondrial haplogroups, implying a maternal clan-based structure. Reproductive unions at Wetwang Slack suggest a recurrent alliance between two dominant maternal descent groups, with members of each group never reproducing with members of their own maternal lineage. Meanwhile, three individuals from lavishly furnished chariot burials at Wetwang Slack were close maternal relatives belonging to a lineage with consecutive generations of close kin unions, a pattern largely absent among other individuals at the site. These results indicate highly distinctive social practices among an elite group embedded in the wider kinship network of the Arras community.
Besides having an awesome name, Wetwang Slack is a very famous archaeological site, especially because of the three chariot burials, all of which were women.
View of one of the burials
Wetwang Slack is generally associated with the Arras Culture of northeastern Britain, which dates from around 450 BC to the Roman conquest. Who these people were is a complicated question. They certainly seem culturally Celtic – just look at their jewelry! – but it has been much disputed whether they were recent immigrants. The new study says no:
The cultural affiliation of the Arras Culture has long been debated because of its use of square barrows, chariot burials and La Tène-style objects, which have often invited comparison with Iron Age communities in continental Europe, particularly groups from the Paris Basin. However, our genetic data do not support a model in which the individuals buried in Arras Culture cemeteries derived from a recent migration of individuals from the Continent. Genome wide ancestry was highly homogeneous across Arras sites and burial contexts, and qpAdm modelling using Iron Age individuals from France as the sole ancestry source provided a poor fit. . . . These results suggest that the distinctive Arras funerary tradition of East Yorkshire reflects local British communities participating in broader La Tène-connected cultural networks, rather than the establishment of a recently arrived continental population.
Reconstruction of a Wetwang Slack chariot
Now these folks, the elite of Bronze and Iron Age Europe, were the descendants of invaders from the steppes. Those invaders were patrilineal and, so far as we can tell, patriarchal as well. So how did the people of the Arras Culture end up matrilineal? Good question!
Another interesting discovery is that members of two of the three great matrilineal lineages married each other regularly, as if they were moities, or reciprocal clans, something documented by archaeologists around the world but not mentioned in any written source about the Celts:
Among 45 reproductive unions for which both maternal 374 lineages could be assigned, 25 involved one partner carrying the major T2e1a1b haplotype 375 and the other H1ao (Fig. 3e). Thus, more than half of the reproductive unions at Wetwang 376 Slack joined the two dominant matrilines at the site.
My overall take is that the Arras Culture was a unique thing, obviously influenced by continental Celts but preserving many aspects of local Bronze Age culture, including, perhaps, matrilineal descent and prominent political roles for women.
Fascinating.Olalde et al., Ancient DNA reveals matrilineal organisation and recurrent unions between dominant matrilines in Iron Age Britain, bioRxiv preprint
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