The DNA recovered from 55 individuals buried at a cemetery active from around 100 B.C. to A.D. 100 suggests a matrilocal social network, where women married outsiders, leading male partners to leave their homes.
Cassidy highlights that patrilocality, where wives move to be with their husbands, isn't always beneficial to women, separating them from familial support. In contrast, matrilocality empowers women by maintaining their kinship ties.
Matrilocal societies empower women without being matriarchies; they centralize women's roles in food production, labor, and land inheritance, especially when men are absent, possibly due to warfare.
The rarity of human remains from this period makes the discovery of the burial ground near Winterborne Kingston significant, adding vital insights about Iron Age Britain's obscure societal structures.
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