Neolithic tombs reveal ancient kinship ties
Male individuals buried in Neolithic chambered tombs in northern Scotland were often related to each other through the paternal line and some were interred in the same or nearby tombs, research shows.
28 April 2026
A team of archaeologists including Chris Fowler, Professor of Archaeology, Newcastle University, analysed ancient DNA to investigate the genetic relationships between individuals buried in Neolithic chambered tombs in Caithness and the Orkney Islands, dating from approximately 3800–3200 BCE.
They then compared the results with the structure and layout of the tombs to investigate how funerary architecture visually expressed kinship in the landscapes.
The first Neolithic people in north-west Europe often constructed chambered tombs to inter their remains. Sometimes, these individuals were biologically related to each other, but surviving remains are often fragmented, making connections between tombs and kinship unclear.
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Image: One of the tombs at Loch Calder, in the Scottish Highlands (credit: Professor Vicki Cummings)
Kinship is a social phenomenon, a measure of social relatedness and belonging which – among many other things - reflects on the biological relatedness of individuals within a community.