When the Romans first entered the British Isles, they found a land ruled by warrior queens and other high-status women – or at least, that’s how Julius Caesar and other witnesses described the situation in this new and strange territory.

Scientists analyzing 2,000-year-old DNA have revealed that a Celtic society in the southern U.K. during the Iron Age was centered around women, a study said.

Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that an Iron Age community in Dorset, England, was centered around bonds of female-line descent.

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

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.

Julius Caesar, in his account of the Gallic Wars written more than more than century earlier, also described Celtic women participating in public affairs, exercising political influence — and having more than one husband.