Researchers have discovered 15,000-year-old cave art in Ireland, suggesting that the country's first human inhabitants likely traveled from Wales. The discovery of rock art across eight cave sites in south-west Ireland pushes back the timeline of human presence in Ireland by around 5,000 years compared to previous findings.
According to Dr. George Nash, a rock expert from Liverpool University who led the Lost Land Bridge Project, lower sea levels during the last Ice Age created a 46-mile (76 km) land bridge between modern-day Pembrokeshire in Wales and the Rosslare area in south-east Ireland. This pathway was a plateau covered with forests and grasslands that hunter-gatherers could use to move between regions.
Even though summer temperatures ranged from -10°C to -20°C, the land bridge supported mosses and lichens in fertile, near-frozen soil. This vegetation fed large wild animals including mammoths, reindeer, bison, and wild horses, creating ideal hunting conditions for early humans.
Dr. Nash assembled an international team of researchers from University College Dublin, the University of Adelaide, and institutions in Dubai, Wales, and Portugal. The team believes it was almost certain that early humans utilized this natural bridge to explore and settle in Ireland.