Ancient DNA extracted from a Bronze Age skeleton has overturned long-held assumptions about one of the most striking burials near Stonehenge. The individual interred in a barrow at Upton Lovell in Wiltshire, long interpreted as a male shaman or metalworker, has been identified as female.
The grave, discovered in the early 19th century, contained an exceptional array of objects. Stone axes bearing traces of gold lay alongside a gold necklace, bone points, metalworking tools including scribes and a touchstone used to test metal purity, flints, a ceremonial cloak pierced with animal bones, a pouch holding boar tusks, fossil sponge cups and a battle axe of greenstone brought from Cornwall.
These items suggested high status and a role that blended practical craft with ritual. Metalworking in the Early Bronze Age sat at the intersection of economic trade networks stretching across Europe and deeper cultural practices. Previous reconstructions, shaped by the masculine-coded nature of the tools and certain skeletal traits, depicted the occupant as a bearded man.
Both came back as female as well, so that essentially confirms that the skeleton was female, and this was probably a female metalworker, and specifically a gold worker, who had some kind of special status within their community in order to be not only afforded a burial underneath one of these round barrows, but also to be buried with this huge, unique diversity of grave goods as well.
Tom Booth, senior research scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, spoke plainly about the results. The analysis also revealed that the woman was around 45 years old at death, postmenopausal, stood about 165 centimetres tall, taller than average for her time, showed signs of wrist arthritis consistent with repetitive craftwork, and carried Beaker ancestry.
The DNA work forms part of a larger effort at the institute to sequence genomes from roughly 1,000 ancient individuals. Those data are now feeding directly into archaeological understanding. Pontus Skoglund, senior group leader of the ancient genomics laboratory at the Crick, captured the value of handing such concrete evidence to colleagues in other fields.
It feels really good to give this to archaeologists.
He added that continuing to expand a publicly available ancient genetic record will allow archaeologists and others to develop a richer picture of past societies and the people who lived in them. The results appear in the institute's free exhibition We Go Way Back, which opened on 16 July 2026 and runs until 2 July 2027.
