Published in Antiquity magazine, a recent study of a 4,000-year-old village in the Links of Noltland on Westray Island in the Orkney archipelago of northern Scotland found that a wave of migration, led by women, resulted in a period of peace and productivity, say the researchers in a press release.
Researchers have combined ancient DNA, or aDNA, with more than 100 burials from a Noltland cemetery, including a large tomb that has been used for centuries as a family dome.
ADNA is said to provide evidence that an influx of non-natives occurred in Orkney during the Bronze Age.
Researchers say that while the influx of women into the Noldland did not lead to major cultural changes, which in turn made it “archaeologically invisible”, it had a unique impact on the site’s genetic makeup.
“DNA shows that the community at Links of Noltland was made up of local men and incoming women of continental descent,” said Graeme Wilson of EASE Archeology.
“DNA shows not only the fact of migration but also the way in which it mediated.”
The study follows recent research from Orkney suggesting that large-scale migration, mostly by women, occurred between the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age, which occurred in Orkney between 2,500 and 800 BC.
Considered one of the best-preserved and most extensive prehistoric settlements in Scotland, site research on aDNA shows a migration of people from mainland Europe, who have spread throughout Britain, including Orkney.
Wilson says the genealogies of men in the Noltland can be traced back to the early Neolithic population, providing evidence for a possible patriarchal inheritance system where household and land rights were passed down through the male line.
Household numbers appeared to be stable, indicating that the estate was not divided among many heirs.
However, the long male background, the researchers say, shows that the men remained and inherited while the women left.
“These results show how Orkney was involved in wider networks at a time when it was previously considered isolated and going through a kind of ‘recession,'” Wilson said.
Researchers say this has ensured that households had enough resources to survive in the harsh Orkney environment.
The different types of burials found in the cemetery also show the creation of “new and more complex identities”, with common rituals, activities, technologies and cultivation techniques ending in a “peaceful and productive period”, the researchers say.
“Not by posing an existential threat, as has sometimes been suggested, the influx of people here seems to have coincided with a period of social stability,” Wilson said.
