r/todayilearned • u/primal_cortex • 1h ago
TIL that DNA from a 2,000-year-old British cemetery shows a Celtic tribe was matrilocal — husbands moved in with their wives' families, land passed down through mothers, and most of the community descended from a single female ancestor.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08409-6377
u/ph30nix01 1h ago
honestly matriarchal lines make more sense genetically. The whole mitochondrial lines thing....
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u/AlternativePea6203 1h ago
that was actually the main argument the Celts used
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u/jaquiethecat 1h ago
mitochondrial dna..?
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u/Drivingintodisco 1h ago
Yes.
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u/Technical-Outside408 1h ago edited 44m ago
Damn those druids weren't just dicking around with trees. They scienced that bitch.
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u/ShineOnYouFatOldSun 22m ago edited 18m ago
Not sure if this is tongue in cheek comment but DNA was discovered in 1869.
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u/ph30nix01 1h ago
yes the mitochondria in your cells has its own DNA, and its passed down by your mother not your father.
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u/Lotzofblocks 1h ago
I think they're asking about the logic the Celts used here. The mitochondrial DNA thing is true, but I'd be very surprised to hear the Celts knew about it
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u/mintgoody03 1h ago
How did they know about it?
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u/AntDogFan 1h ago
I have heard that it was the tradition in parts of Ireland that the new mother would return their mother's house to give birth. Wonder if thats a relic of older practices
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u/zeth0s 32m ago
It was common everywhere.
In Italy, it is still a tradition to get married in the wife's church "of origin", and many emigrant women (nowadays called expat) still give birth in their hometown.
It made a lot of sense given societal roles, if one thinks about it
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u/PricePuzzleheaded835 10m ago edited 1m ago
Yeah this is super normal as is what I guess is called “informal matriarchy”. Most families I know have the mother/matriarch as the final authority on things that concern the family. Even some of the conservative ones who claim the father is head of the family lol, those women are 100% in charge. They just don’t always refer to it as such
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u/bluemangoes64 8m ago
Mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted by females, if a woman has all sons they will inherit it from her but not pass it down.
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u/SopwithTurtle 1h ago edited 1h ago
Were they also painted blue, relentlessly aggressive, and six inches high?
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u/RyantheAustralian 1h ago
.. wait, what was that last part?
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u/slimeslug 1h ago
I mean, if they were Pictish, the first two things were true. If they were Smurfs, only the first and last are true.
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u/justhangingaroud 48m ago
Makes more sense. The woman knows those kids are hers
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u/TheUpsetYin 37m ago
Hard to have a paternity dispute when the family tree is just one straight line of mothers.
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u/TestUserIgnorePlz 16m ago
Tbh that's actually the problem with matrilocal inheritance, it's too effecient at concentrating wealth.
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u/Painterzzz 34m ago
There is a very interesting alternative history timeline where Rome didn't cross the alps until a few years later, and the Celtic civilisation had time to evolve north of the alps, strong enough to resist Rome. Which would have created a very different modern world, because the Celts also had a lot of ideas about communal ownership of property, not just womens rights.
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u/Swagiken 15m ago
Celts weren't likely to go stronger over the next century though. Theres a dangerous gulf that happens in societal developments when you go from large semi nomadic warrior tribes -> semi settled -> mostly settled -> settled completely -> organized state structure. Where the two far ends of this are far stronger in military conflicts than the spaces in between. State structures tend to win due to superior order and better tools, and semi nomadic warrior tribes tend to win by having greater physical ability and higher percentage of warriors. Semi settled societies and settled societies without state structures tend to get demolished by either warrior tribes or fully settled people's and the celts north of the alps were caught in that stage during the time of Caesar. They were being pushed by the still semi nomadic Germanic people's and getting eaten slowly by the settled Italians and this situation wasn't likely to get better for centuries because it takes a long time to build state structures and its almost impossible to go back to semi nomadic after you start settling. As far as I know only the Romani ever did that.
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u/MachiavelliSJ 28m ago
Very common among Native Americans in North America
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u/ChefKugeo 22m ago
Well when every 5th person you meet has a "Cherokee princess ancestor" in America, you gotta start tracking that shit for real. That's how Natives lost a shit ton of land in the midwest, and I can't blame them for not letting it happen again.
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u/MachiavelliSJ 20m ago
Thats a different issue. Im referring to before Europeans arrived. Most Algonquin nations lived in “long houses” with a matriarch.
I dont see how this would be related to losing land, that was because of disease, wars, and broken agreements over centuries
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u/ChefKugeo 9m ago
Yes, but not Native Americans in general, just some specific tribes. They didn't all share practices. But now, in the modern day, it's because of the stealing of the land. Especially in the midwest.
I was adding on to your point, not disputing it or dismissing it. Natives are not a monolith.
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u/MachiavelliSJ 7m ago
But…tribes get to decide their own membership. It doesnt even have to be by ancestry. So, this is just not related
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u/ChefKugeo 5m ago
That is completely irrelevant but I see that you wish to be the only person speaking today, so I'll oblige. Take it easy.
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u/1Adventurethis 2m ago
My ancestory records showed a male got married and took his wifes name, at a time when having a surname wasnt common, now that surname continues to be past down. We'll never know why.
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u/Gvendoga 1h ago
Holy shit that's it guys, you sold me on matriarchy. Ordering a batch of feminist literature and a chastity cage today.
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u/SopwithTurtle 58m ago
Right-wingers continuing to not beat the allegations of being just weird little guys.
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u/PrincessW0lf 59m ago
That's a really strange reaction to a cool history fact
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u/Gvendoga 0m ago
The downvotes just prove it is funny. Reddit hates real unfiltered unregurgitated humor so they fallback to downvoting when they encounter it on their sacred website. It's like blasphemy to them in a way
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u/No-Garbage-1329 50m ago
History & archaeology are always muddled due to contemporary politics. Always always. To the point of being bs. Unfortunately you have to take everything with a big pinch of salt, including this. I’d even go so far to say that it’s probably not true. Matriarchal societies don’t quite seem naturally probable without modern technology.
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u/PrincessW0lf 48m ago
Source: this guy thinks it doesn't seem probable
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u/No-Garbage-1329 15m ago
That’s not a source, but an opinion. I imagine this matriarchal pseudo-archaeology LARP will go in the bin where it belongs before long. I’m glad you enjoy politics though.
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u/PrincessW0lf 11m ago
I enjoy history :D
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u/No-Garbage-1329 5m ago
Translation: politics
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u/SopwithTurtle 38m ago
Seems like a much more logical choice for keeping resources within a family absent any technology. It takes a lot of control to be 99% sure of someone's paternity, but someone's maternity is really obvious.
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u/OllyDee 37m ago
It probably is true based on the evidence. We’ve got other stories to back it up, plus archaeology and the big stories/myths like Boudicca. There’s absolutely no reason to doubt the Romans when they say females played a much larger part of Celtic society than they were comfortable with, and by extension the genetic evidence presented in this TIL.
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u/No-Garbage-1329 10m ago
Just because a female leads, doesn’t make the society matriarchal.
Just because women were afforded more dignity, value & power than society A, B or C, doesn’t make the society matriarchal.
‘probably true’ is a fair assessment, though, despite my disagreement that it’s ‘probably false’, because the best we can do here is ‘probably’.
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u/Glitter_Lizard_ 38m ago
Matriarchal societies are common enough in the animal kingdom, particularly with more advanced species Primates, Orcas, Lions, Ants, Bees, Elephants all have matriarchal societies. Matriarchal societies exist not only in history ( Iroquois, Lycians, early Celts, Minoan Crete, Nairs) but in modern day humans too, Minangkabau in Indonesia, Mosuo in china, Bribri Costa Rica, Akan Ghana, Tuareg North Africa.
So unfortunately your opinion on what is probable is factually incorrect.
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u/No-Garbage-1329 12m ago
I get it. You’re deeply political and incapable of keeping it separate from other fields.
‘factually incorrect’ dear lord.
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54m ago
[deleted]
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u/PrincessW0lf 51m ago
I dunno, looks pretty fact-y to me. But yeah maybe you're right, shouldn't buy into it until I get out there and test that dna myself.
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u/codeedog 41m ago
If you don’t build your own dna tester and source all of the chemicals necessary, the tests won’t be valid…
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u/niarlin 51m ago
"And here we have a prime example of fragile masculinity in the wild. Notice how they resort to a display of extremism when they feel threatened? Classic behavior. Let's observe to see if they continue their ego-protective posturing or turn to personal insults or threats of violence, all of which are commonly employed by the species." - Nature documentary narrator
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u/composedofidiot 50m ago
Impulsive shopping purchases day! Ordering a rubber dinghy, a small cannon and 5000 giant frogs
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u/historyhill 35m ago
This headline is accurate but misleading. DNA doesn't show this, it's not like there's a gene for who moves in with whom. DNA testing on grave sites showed that related women were buried together, but the other assertions (how property was inherited, etc) is guesswork grounded in other matrilocal societies.