Maternal relationships within an Iron Age burial at the High Pasture Cave, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Katharina Dulias; Steven Birch; James F.  Wilson; Pierre Justeau; Francesca Gandini; Antónia Flaquer; Pedro Soares; Martin B. Richards; Maria Pala; Ceiridwen J. Edwards

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2019.104978

Maternal relationships within an Iron Age burial at the High Pasture Cave, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Katharina Dulias, Steven Birch, James F. Wilson, Pierre Justeau, Francesca Gandini, Antónia Flaquer, Pedro Soares, Martin B. Richards, Maria Pala, Ceiridwen J. Edwards

Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Human remains from the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland are rare, which makes the assemblage of an adult female and numerous foetal bones at High Pasture Cave, on the Isle of Skye, particularly noteworthy. Archaeological evidence suggests that the female had been deposited as an articulated skeleton when the cave entrance was blocked off, marking the end of use of the site. Particularly intriguing is the deposition of disarticulated remains from a foetus and perinate close to the adult female, which opens the possibility that the female might have been the mother of both of the infants. We used shotgun genome sequencing in order to analyse the mitochondrial genomes of all three individuals and investigate their maternal relationship, and we report here, for the first time, complete ancient mitogenomes from foetal-aged bone fragments. While we could not exclude the possibility that the female was the mother of, or maternally related to, the foetus, we could definitely say that she was not the mother of the perinate buried alongside her. This finding is contrary to the standard archaeological interpretation, that women in such burials most likely died in childbirth and were buried together with their foetuses.

Original language	English
Article number	104978
Journal	Journal of archaeological science
Volume	110
Early online date	12 Sept 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2019.104978
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 12 Sept 2019

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ancient DNA
shot-gun sequencing
foetus
mitochondrial DNA

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jas.2019.104978

JASC19-HPC-Research Paper_Preprint
© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.
Accepted author manuscript, 530 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Maternal relationships within an Iron Age burial at the High Pasture Cave, Isle of Skye, Scotland",

abstract = "Human remains from the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland are rare, which makes the assemblage of an adult female and numerous foetal bones at High Pasture Cave, on the Isle of Skye, particularly noteworthy. Archaeological evidence suggests that the female had been deposited as an articulated skeleton when the cave entrance was blocked off, marking the end of use of the site. Particularly intriguing is the deposition of disarticulated remains from a foetus and perinate close to the adult female, which opens the possibility that the female might have been the mother of both of the infants. We used shotgun genome sequencing in order to analyse the mitochondrial genomes of all three individuals and investigate their maternal relationship, and we report here, for the first time, complete ancient mitogenomes from foetal-aged bone fragments. While we could not exclude the possibility that the female was the mother of, or maternally related to, the foetus, we could definitely say that she was not the mother of the perinate buried alongside her. This finding is contrary to the standard archaeological interpretation, that women in such burials most likely died in childbirth and were buried together with their foetuses.",

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author = "Katharina Dulias and Steven Birch and Wilson, {James F.} and Pierre Justeau and Francesca Gandini and Ant{\'o}nia Flaquer and Pedro Soares and Richards, {Martin B.} and Maria Pala and Edwards, {Ceiridwen J.}",

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AU - Dulias, Katharina

AU - Birch, Steven

AU - Wilson, James F.

AU - Justeau, Pierre

AU - Gandini, Francesca

AU - Flaquer, Antónia

AU - Soares, Pedro

AU - Richards, Martin B.

AU - Pala, Maria

AU - Edwards, Ceiridwen J.

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N2 - Human remains from the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland are rare, which makes the assemblage of an adult female and numerous foetal bones at High Pasture Cave, on the Isle of Skye, particularly noteworthy. Archaeological evidence suggests that the female had been deposited as an articulated skeleton when the cave entrance was blocked off, marking the end of use of the site. Particularly intriguing is the deposition of disarticulated remains from a foetus and perinate close to the adult female, which opens the possibility that the female might have been the mother of both of the infants. We used shotgun genome sequencing in order to analyse the mitochondrial genomes of all three individuals and investigate their maternal relationship, and we report here, for the first time, complete ancient mitogenomes from foetal-aged bone fragments. While we could not exclude the possibility that the female was the mother of, or maternally related to, the foetus, we could definitely say that she was not the mother of the perinate buried alongside her. This finding is contrary to the standard archaeological interpretation, that women in such burials most likely died in childbirth and were buried together with their foetuses.

AB - Human remains from the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland are rare, which makes the assemblage of an adult female and numerous foetal bones at High Pasture Cave, on the Isle of Skye, particularly noteworthy. Archaeological evidence suggests that the female had been deposited as an articulated skeleton when the cave entrance was blocked off, marking the end of use of the site. Particularly intriguing is the deposition of disarticulated remains from a foetus and perinate close to the adult female, which opens the possibility that the female might have been the mother of both of the infants. We used shotgun genome sequencing in order to analyse the mitochondrial genomes of all three individuals and investigate their maternal relationship, and we report here, for the first time, complete ancient mitogenomes from foetal-aged bone fragments. While we could not exclude the possibility that the female was the mother of, or maternally related to, the foetus, we could definitely say that she was not the mother of the perinate buried alongside her. This finding is contrary to the standard archaeological interpretation, that women in such burials most likely died in childbirth and were buried together with their foetuses.

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