Ancient DNA from a Cotswold tomb shows five generations of one man's family, buried by father's line, with his sons by four women in separate halves

Hazleton North is a stone-built long cairn on the Cotswold Hills, excavated in 1979 to 1982 by a team led by Alan Saville; the finds went to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester^†. In 2021 Chris Fowler, Iñigo Olalde and colleagues published DNA from 35 people entombed there about 5,700 years ago. Twenty-seven belonged to one five-generation family, the first extended pedigree built from ancient DNA. All 15 links between generations ran through men. Women who had children with men of the lineage were buried there; adult daughters of the lineage were not, which suggests daughters married out. One founding man had children with four women. The descendants of two of those women were buried in the same half of the tomb in every generation. Four men had fathers from outside the lineage and mothers who also had children by lineage men. The authors suggest some men adopted their partners' sons into their line. Eight people buried there were not close biological relatives at all. The burial place followed the father's line, and a man could enter the line through adoption.