Professor Tom Moore

You know, it's more about you than the collective.

That's a really good question.

One possibility is that they are to sort of negotiate burials.

you know, that community, perhaps negotiate with external groups to offer also power.

I mean, in terms of support in warfare, you know, to lead that group when warfare is being consulted, to consult the interaction with the Roman Empire.

So I think that's one of the roles that they have is that kind of, they are the sort of, I mean, often, you know, you can think of them as leaders, you know, negotiating with the outside world, if you like.

No.

So, I mean, we've known from Roman historians like Tacitus that there were powerful women in Iron Age Britain, Boudicca, but also Queen Cartamandua, who's in North Yorkshire.

What's exciting is the archaeological evidence is really kind of emphasising that.

In the past, you know, historians have sort of struggled.

Is the Romans making a point of this because it's exceptional?

Two queens and that's it.

Yeah, and they make a big thing of it because perhaps it's unusual.

But actually, it's probably not unusual.

So there's fantastic evidence from ancient DNA evidence now, which is showing...

uh particularly in southwest but also in east yorkshire of the sort of the relatedness of of of females so that their power seems to be going through the female line so there might be that women sort of so women stay in the same place they have maybe more power over land and that men come into those communities and perhaps they do other things in societies but there's there's also been you know we've known for some time if we go back to east yorkshire

And you mentioned chariots with chariots and wonderful grave goods from Wetwang Slack in Yorkshire, for instance, where we have this fantastic iron mirror.

It's very enigmatic being so that, you know, high status grave goods, which indicate that women are getting the same kind of treatment as some men.

And they have, you know, wonderful grave goods.

I mean, Iron Mirror, this is a wonderful one which has this kind of, what's called a beam counter, which underplays it, but this is a very enigmatic copper alloy object, you know, which we don't really know what it's for.