Women were at the centre of social networks in Iron Age Britain

Nature ^ | January 15, 2025 | Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone

[SunkenCiv]

Evidence from 2,000-year-old DNA reveals that women in Celtic society stayed in their ancestral communities after marriage, whereas men were mobile, and that the southern coast of Britain was a hotspot for cultural exchange.

Marriage practices, particularly those that define where spouses live (and die) after marriage, are fundamental to human societies. These patterns shape perceptions of family, tribe and clan, influence community belonging and regulate land ownership. Anthropologists have long studied such practices globally, finding that patrilocality — in which a married woman moves to her male partner's community — is the most common. However, it remains unknown how deeply rooted these systems are in human societies, and how they might have changed through time, particularly during prehistoric periods. Past social customs are often forgotten or marginally recorded in written sources. Writing in Nature, Cassidy et al.1 analyse the genomes of around 50 individuals buried in southern Britain's Iron Age cemetery at Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, unlocking a long-forgotten history.

[SunkenCiv]

Durotrigian burial of a young woman from Langton Herring sampled for DNA (c) Bournemouth University. She was buried with a mirror (right panels) and jewellery, including a Roman coin amulet showing a female charioteer representing Victory. [Ancient genomes reveal an Iron Age society centred on women | Eurekalert! | January 15, 2025 | Trinity College Dublin]

Credit: Bournemouth University

Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their children; but if there be any issue by these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first espoused when a virgin.

· Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, chapter 14

[DIRTYSECRET]

That’s nice.

[SunkenCiv]

• Scientists are building an ultimate atlas of the vagina. Here's why. [02/08/2025]
  (will it be in braille?)

[ComputerGuy]

Well, someone’s got to handle the gossip.

[GingisK]

That would be the highly efficient and very long range “Tell-a-Woman” communications apparatus.

[monkeyshine]

Yentas gonna yent

[monkeyshine]

the southern coast of Britain was a hotspot for cultural exchange

It is funny to me that people need to explain why port cities were important to human civilization. I mean, you gotta stop and buy limes every once in a while.

[Larry Lucido]

I remembered those times. When a chick wanted to block you on CeltHarmony, she had to use a 1000 pound iron block. Needless to say, we all tried to get along.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh heh... yeah, the landlubbers write the history books. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

It was so much easier the Bronze Age.

[SunkenCiv]

...and a couple thousand years later, the Ottoman Empire took over Anatolia and then some — a whole empire based on putting your feet up...

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, or maybe the whole shebang was just one big whorehouse. :^) ;^)

If anyone wants me for the rest of the day, I’ll be in hiding.

[GingisK]

You know, sometime I wish for more primitive times.

[Jeff Chandler]

Best Little Whorehouse On The Peat Bog.

[Larry Lucido]

And the plastic age was still a long way off.

[sasquatch]

https://www.youtube.com/user/celticwomanvid

[SunkenCiv]

LOL

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“Yentas gonna yent”

Some things never change.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Shocked. Social networks. So THAT’s where the phrase i
“insufferable gossip” went

[Albion Wilde]

I’ve got news — women are still the organizers of our private lives’ society in the U.S.

During second wave feminism (1970–2005), many women tried to abandon the role for the sake of “equality”, only to discover it is a major inborn talent that most women have, and many (most) men do not.