How power was passed on among elite families 2,000 years ago

By Stephen Beech

Political power and high status was passed on among elite families in nomadic societies 2,000 years ago, suggests new research.

DNA retrieved from Iron Age burial sites reveals how high social status may have been inherited through family lineages, say scientists.

And nearly half of the elite individuals identified were female—indicating that women could attain high social status within Iron Age Scythian society.

The Scythians were an ancient nomadic people of Eastern Iranian origin who dominated the Eurasian steppes from the ninth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.

Renowned as fearsome horsemen and master archers, they built a huge trading and cultural network that stretched from present-day Ukraine to the borders of China.

The new DNA study, published in the journal Science Advances, provides evidence that political power among Scythian elites may have been inherited through family lineages that extended across multiple burial sites.

The Iron Age witnessed the appearance of large burial mounds, built for high-status people.

The elaborately constructed monumental graves often contained richly adorned women and men accompanied by gold ornaments, weapons and scarified animals.

In contrast, other people were buried in much smaller and simpler mounds with few or no grave goods.

The striking differences have previously been interpreted as evidence of growing social inequality and the emergence of powerful elites.

But, until now, it wasn't clear how elite status was maintained and passed on.

The new study analyzed genome-wide DNA from 85 Iron Age individuals, including 38 elite and 47 non-elite individuals from across Central Eurasia.

It included 46 newly sequenced genomes and the first genome-wide data from the Scythian Saka "Golden Man" of the Issyk archaeological site in Kazakhstan, one of the most outstanding archaeological discoveries in the region.

One of the most significant discoveries from the Central Eurasian steppe is the Issyk kurgans in Kazakhstan, located around 30 miles east of Almaty.

Excavations of the royal burial complex associated with the Iron Age Saka culture revealed the "Golden Man" burial dating to between 400 B.C. and 300 B.C.

The individual was buried in a wooden chamber containing more than 4,000 gold ornaments, weapons, gold embroidered headdress and a silver bowl with unknown writing.

Analysis of DNA from the "Golden Man" helped to resolve a long-standing question by indicating that the individual was most likely male than female.

The international research team also identified evidence of close family relationships linking elite individuals across multiple cemeteries, in some cases more than 60miles apart, as well as signs of unions between relatives.

They say the results indicate that elite status was maintained within interconnected family lineages, that shaped political authority and social organization across the region.

Ainash Childebayeva, from the University of Texas at Austin, said: "We did not expect to find that social status was passed down from generation to generation.

"But it was clear that high-status individuals were more related to each other, even when buried at different archaeological sites, than to people of lower status who were buried at the same sites with the elites."

The research team found no clear evidence that elite status was associated with either patrilocal or matrilocal residence patterns, suggesting that social organizing among Scythian elites were more complex and not based on gender differentiation.

The study also sheds new light on the role of elite women in Scythian society.

Ayshin Ghalichi, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said: "An important observation from our study was the noticeable presence of elite women.

"Nearly half of the elite individuals in our dataset were female, indicating that women held high social status within Iron Age Scythian society."

Ghalichi says the presence of elite women in richly furnished graves, together with genomic evidence linking high-status individuals across burial sites, points to a social world in which status, authority and kinship were closely connected.

He said the findings suggest that political authority among Iron Age Scythian groups may have been organized through extended elite family networks rather than through simple residence patterns based on either male or female lines.

Leyla Djansugurova, from the Institute of Genetics and Physiology in Almaty, Kazakhstan, said: "Scythians and Sakas are collective names for nomadic tribes of the early Iron Age who inhabited the Central Eurasian region from the Danube to the Altai.

"The ancient Greeks called them 'Scythians' while Persian and Indian sources called them 'Sakas'.

"Historically, the term Scythians more often refers to the western tribes, and Sakas to the eastern ones.

"All these tribes were united by the so-called Scythian-Saka animal style in art, a distinctive military skill, and nomadic herding.

"They did not have their own written language, but they left behind grand burial mounds, the study of which has shaped the global understanding of the culture of the nomadic peoples of Eurasia during this period.

"The most striking example of the Scythian-Saka culture is the 'Golden Man' from the Issyk burial mound, which has become the national symbol of Kazakhstan."

She added: "The value of this genetic study not only estimated by the fact of obtaining the first reliable DNA data on numerous objects belonging to the Saka elite, such as the Golden Man from the Issyk burial mound, the Urzhar Princess, the Shilikty Golden Man, and others, but also by the fact that Scythian-Saka elite individuals were being examined alongside non-elite individuals found at the same sites.

"This approach has allowed to determine the specifics of elite marital relationships and identify related necropolises.

"Thus, this genetic study significantly enriches our knowledge of the Scythian-Saka culture."