A new study re-examines the human remains and archaeological evidence from prehistoric tombs in Newgrange, Ireland, and refutes the previous view that the "royal class that maintains rule through incest" has long dominated ancient Irish society. It believes that the society as a whole was more equal at that time, rather than a strong royal elite similar to ancient Egypt.The research team pointed out that the existing archaeological and genetic data do not support the hypothesis of "intermarriage among the ruling classes" and that the relevant cases are more likely to be rare exceptions rather than institutionalized social phenomena.

Newgrange is a Neolithic passage tomb dating back more than 5,000 years. It is older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza. It consists of a huge mound and an inner stone passage and tomb. On the early morning of the winter solstice, the sunlight will shine directly into the tomb along the passage. It is believed to have been built by a prosperous farming society in the Boyne Valley. Due to the special design of the tomb and the limited number of burials, early archeology inferred that this was a family cemetery for some kind of "royal family" or high-level group.

In 2020, genetic testing of a temporal bone fragment called "NG10" in the tomb revealed that this individual was born in a close relationship between brothers and sisters or direct relatives, and his genes are distantly related to other individuals in the site. This led to the hypothesis of "a ruling class that maintains blood purity through incest." Some scholars believe that the cases of incest in the tombs represent an elite marriage pattern that is tolerated and even institutionalized by society.

The latest research published in the journal "Antiquity" refutes this "elite rule" inference through a broader analysis of the archaeological and social background. The research team from the University of York and University College Dublin found no obvious signs of social or economic class differentiation in terms of settlement morphology, dietary structure, resource acquisition, and handicraft production, nor did they see a large-scale settlement system or complex trade network matching the royal elite. The buildings are generally simple and similar, and the remains show a relatively even distribution of resources. Based on this, researchers believe that the society at that time was more likely to be characterized by collectivism and sharing rather than strong hierarchy.

At the genetic level, researchers pointed out that in many passage tombs, including Newgrange, the "clustering relationships" of human remains are mostly reflected in distant relatives such as "cousins ​​several generations away" rather than close direct lineal or blood ties within one or two generations. If these tombs are truly the exclusive tombs of a certain ruling family, it is expected that more concentrated patterns of close kinship relationships should emerge. The team therefore proposes that such tombs are more likely to be places that symbolically unite families, working partners, and various social relationships, rather than signs of a single royal lineage.

The study also emphasizes that the people buried in the passage tombs are not a microcosm of the entire community, but a group of people who were selected to enter the commemorative remains, but the criteria for being "selected" are still unclear. During this period, the way corpses were handled was very different from modern times: corpses were often dismembered, exposed, or cremated first, and the bones might be circulated in the community before entering megalithic tombs in the form of broken bones or mixed with other people, making it increasingly difficult to reconstruct an individual's identity and social status during his or her lifetime.

Since Newgrange had been disturbed many times before it was rediscovered in 1699 AD, and the internal accumulation of the tomb has been destroyed during modern excavations, researchers are also doubtful whether "NG10" was originally buried at the current site. The tomb itself is characterized by phased expansion, and bone fragments may have been moved in at a later stage. Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether the individual case has a direct correspondence with the religious or social concepts when the tomb was first built.

The team believes that the incestuous marriage origin of "NG10" is still an isolated case in Irish Neolithic DNA samples, and there is no comparable systematic pattern in the overall data. Coupled with the fact that the remains are highly fragmented and mixed, tomb users may not know the life experience of the individual to which this skeleton belongs, further weakening its persuasiveness as a symbol of a "special king."

Penny Bickel, one of the leaders of the study and an archaeologist at the University of York, said that to understand a monumental building like Newgrange, it must be placed in the daily life of the community that built and used it, rather than deducing a highly centralized royal power structure solely from the shape of the tomb and individual genetic anomalies. Based on the settlement morphology, material culture and genetic evidence, the team is more inclined to view Newgrange as a symbolic place collectively built and used by a relatively equal and inclusive farming society, rather than as physical evidence of the rule of incestuous royal families.

Compiled from /ScitechDaily