Geneticist Lara Cassidy wasn’t surprised to find several generations of the same family buried in an Iron Age cemetery near Dorset, England. But she was quite surprised to find most of them were related along a single matrilineal line.

Researchers have uncovered genetic evidence suggesting that ancient Celtic societies in Iron Age Britain were matrilineal and matrilocal, with women holding status and influence.

Around 2,000 years ago, before the Roman Empire conquered Great Britain, women were at the very front and center of Iron Age society. Researchers have sequenced the genomes of around 50 Celtic Britons buried together in southern England and uncovered strong evidence of female-line descent.

Genetic evidence from a late Iron Age cemetery in southern Britain shows that women were closely related while unrelated men tended to come into the community from elsewhere, likely after marriage.

Scientists analysing 2,000-year-old DNA have revealed that a Celtic society in the southern UK during the Iron Age was centred around women, backing up accounts from Roman historians, a study said Wednesday.

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.

The site belonged to a group the Romans named the “Durotriges,” researchers said, and this ethnic group had other settlements, including a site near Dorset nicknamed “Duropolis” by the archaeologists who work there.

The social fabric of Iron Age Britain, spanning roughly from 800 BC to AD 100, has long puzzled historians and archaeologists. Recent breakthroughs in genetic analysis are now shedding light on the lives and social structures of these ancient communities.