Cracking the genetic code: Illuminating the past and informing the present with ancient DNA

In 1801, William Cunnington – a prolific excavator of Bronze Age barrows on Salisbury Plain – investigated a particularly impressive burial mound at Upton Lovell, about 12 miles (20km) west of Stonehenge. The near complete skeleton of its primary occupant was surrounded by an extraordinary array of artefacts, including multiple stone axes (some of exotic materials) and particularly unusual items, such as a pouch decorated with boars’  tusks and a set of four cups crafted  from fossil sponges, which were accompanied by a bronze awl and  have been interpreted as a possible tattooing kit. Most strikingly, this individual was buried in some kind of cloak or garment decorated with numerous pierced animal bones –  a design that would have created  a very distinctive impression (and sound) when its wearer moved.

If this intriguing ensemble hints  at this person holding a special role within their community, then that status could have been connected to the ‘tool kit’ of stone and copper-alloy implements that had also accompanied them to the grave.  These were hammers, anvils, and smoothing tools used for metalworking (specifically, goldworking, more recent analysis has revealed; see  CA 396), a craft that in c.1800 BC, when this individual was buried, is thought to have been regarded with particular reverence. The ability to create shimmering molten metal and then transform it into solid objects must have seemed almost magical to unfamiliar observers, and it has long been suspected that metalworkers held an elevated status in Bronze Age Britain. The Upton Lovell individual, with their extravagant grave goods, may have been a chieftain or a religious leader, Cunnington reasoned – and he assumed that this high-status person was male. 

This perception of the ‘Upton Lovell Shaman’ persisted for more than 200 years, and, in the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, displays of the artefacts have long been accompanied by an image of a bearded man. Now centuries of stereotypes about Bronze Age gender roles have been turned on their head, as ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis at the Francis Crick Institute in London has revealed that this magnificently adorned metalworker was, in fact, female. This research comes after the burial’s re-excavation by Dr Colin Shell of Cambridge University, and recovery of the human remains, in 2000. New analysis also showed signs of arthritis in the woman’s right wrist but not in her left, speaking of regular, repetitive tasks using that hand and suggesting that the tools buried with her were not simply symbolic of her social status,  but a real reflection of the skills that had earned the respect of the community who buried her in such style.