Ancient cave art suggests first known humans in Ireland walked over from Wales

Posted by bookofjoe 5 days ago

Comments

Comment by bookofjoe 5 days ago

Comment by nerdralph 3 days ago

This doesn't make sense: "With summertime temperatures typically -10°C to -20°C". Maybe the negative was mistakenly added, and nobody noticed in editing? 10°C to 20°C would be reasonable for a "forested and grassland plateau".

Comment by rjsw 3 days ago

There was an ice sheet starting just north of this area, it would have melted at 10°C.

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by Scarblac 2 days ago

If it didn't melt in summer, its start would have been further to the south.

Comment by dismalaf 2 days ago

There's still an ice sheet an hour from my home, and it's 5-35 degrees all summer....

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by Rumudiez 3 days ago

it's reinforced in the same sentence after you cut off your quote and is repeated again further into the article:

> Nash said the caves would have been "quite a cosy place to live, especially compared with the -20°C outside".

Comment by zamadatix 3 days ago

It is, but the number is still strongly disagreeing with any other value I can find reference to so GP does seem to be on to something being off with this reporting.

My best bet is perhaps "summer" and "winter" got swapped? That's a simple single word mistake and -10 C would seem to be about the winter average in Ireland during the last ice age from other sources I can find, regular dips to -20 C at night or particularly cold days would seem quite reasonable. Based on any other sources I can find, thea peak of summer should have been slightly warmer than freezing (which is not incompatible with year round glacial coverage, it takes a lot of energy to melt such enormous volumes of ice).

I've sent Dr Nash a short email asking if that section of the article was accurate in hopes he's willing to clarify one way or the other.

Comment by illwrks 3 days ago

Agreed, that jumped out at me also. Those numbers make no sense

Comment by rhdunn 3 days ago

So this would suggest that the Goidelic languages (Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx) are derived from the Brittonic languages (Welsh, Breton, Cornish). [1]

I wonder how this affects the different proto-Celtic to modern Celtic languages hypothesis. [1]

This would suggest the following language tree: Breton -> (Cornish / Welsh) -> Irish Gaelic -> (Manx / Scottish Gaelic).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages

Comment by biorach 3 days ago

This migration predates the arrival of Celtic speakers by many thousands of years.

Comment by dTal 2 days ago

Linguistic lineages are not the same as genetic lineages. Populations can switch languages, or die out completely while their language lives on. And in this case, genetic studies show no clear genetic relationship between the Celtic-speaking regions - the Cornish are mostly English, for instance.

Comment by geocar 3 days ago

There were no Brythonic languages 15,000 years ago.

What are you talking about?