An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has joined forces with archaeologists from Bournemouth University to decipher the structure of British Iron Age society, finding evidence of female political and social empowerment.  

The researchers seized upon a rare opportunity to sequence DNA from many members of a single community. They retrieved over 50 ancient genomes from a set of burial grounds in Dorset, southern England, in use before and after the Roman Conquest of AD 43. The results revealed that this community was centred around bonds of female-line descent. 

Small-scale fisheries play a significant but overlooked role in global fisheries production and are key to addressing hunger and malnutrition while supporting livelihoods around the world, according to research featured in Nature. Published by an international team of scientists, the study is the first to rigorously quantify how marine and inland small-scale fisheries contribute to aquatic harvests and nutritional and socioeconomic security on a global scale.