The Guardian view on ancient DNA: a female shaman exposes our flawed assumptions about the past | Editorial

Thanks to new technology we are are acquiring insights into earlier times, and realising how little we truly know Archaeologists believe the Upton Lovell Shaman, who lived in what is now Wiltshire 4,000 years ago, was an important religious leader and metalworker because of the artefacts and tools buried with the body. Until very recently it was also believed, on considerably slimmer evidence, that this shaman was a man: it was simply assumed that someone of such status must be male, and the ...

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