"Female Elite" Ran Ancient City

Mysterious ancient human society found to have been run by a maternal elite.

18:16 23 February 2017

A genetic analysis of a mysterious ancient human society in New Mexico has found that it was run by a female elite. The Chacoans, who lived 1,000 years ago in giant stone mansions, were ruled by a maternal elite who passed power from female to female from 800-1130AD.

 

Lead author Professor Douglas Kennett said: 'Studying how societies like the Chacoans passed power is central to our understanding of why complex societies rise and fall,'

 

'There has been a long-standing debate about Chacoan society and whether leadership positions were based on "matrilineal" [female] or "patrilineal" [male] descent.

 

'Our results are consistent with matrilineal foundations of leadership.'

 

The Chacoans are particularly difficult to study because unlike other North America’s earliest complex societies, they did not use a written language.

 

Professor Kennett added: 'All societies are complex, but here we see a society with larger populations living in villages and cities and where major differences in status and wealth are evident,'

 

'One measure of society is the formation of institutions and one of these is the hereditary basis of leadership.

 

'Usually this is only visible in written documents or inferred from archaeological data, but we have demonstrated this with archaeogenomic data.'