Travel by Ancestry -- to the Isles of Scilly and a patented break-through that helped researchers identify an Iron-Age female warrior and bring her story to light

Source: "Boudica depicted in Holinshed’s Chronicles - The Historie of England (1577) p.61." Author: Raphael Holingshed CC Share Alike 4.0

Ancient, historical figures, lost in legends, take shape.

Using a method patented by the University of California, Davis, where "tooth enamel proteins" were analyzed, researchers were able to identify the remains of an ancient Iron Age female warrior on the Isles of Scilly, according to a July 28, 2023 news release that appeared in Archeaology.

The news release also has a reference to a legendary female warrior known as Boudica, Boudicca, or "Bodiccea," Queen of the Iceni tribe of Ancient Britain, who led the rebellion against the Romans in AD 60.

Who among us has not read at least one historical fiction novel, or paged through an anthology of Celtic history, to find stories of Boudica's exploits? I did, and was pleased to find my copy of Barry Cunliffe's book, The Ancient Celts, which I read when it was first published in the late 1990s. What a force she was at the time!

It is fascinating to think about how "tooth enamel proteins," as were analyzed here, have helped archeologists turn Iron Age myths into matter and fiction into fact.

Also noted in the news release is the relatively recent finding that a Viking warrior, once thought to be a man, on further scrutiny turned out to be a female -- reversing a long-standing, and antiquated, assumption.

See: Archealogy News Release. (2023, July 28). "Tooth Enamel Analysis Offers Clue to Identity of Iron Age Warrior." https://www.archaeology.org/news/11618-230728-iron-age-warrior (Accessed 7/29/2023).

See also: Buonasera, T., Eerkens, J., de Flamingh, A. et al. A comparison of proteomic, genomic, and osteological methods of archaeological sex estimation. Sci Rep 10, 11897 (2020). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68550-w (Open Access)

Note regarding the University of California 2020 research: UC Davis news release dated July 17, 2020, has that "The site is being excavated by the Far West Anthropological Research Group of Davis in collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone tribe." See: https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/archaeologists-use-tooth-enamel-protein-show-sex-human-remains

See also: Cunliffe, B. The Ancient Celts. (1997). Oxford University Press. Note that the second edition of this book, published in 2018 by Oxford University Press includes significant new findings and DNA developments in the world of ancient Celtic history.