3 comments

  • bookofjoe 2 days ago
  • nerdralph 4 hours 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".
    • rjsw 3 hours ago
      There was an ice sheet starting just north of this area, it would have melted at 10°C.
    • Rumudiez 1 hour 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".

      • zamadatix 27 minutes 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.

    • illwrks 3 hours ago
      Agreed, that jumped out at me also. Those numbers make no sense
  • rhdunn 4 hours 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

    • biorach 4 hours ago
      This migration predates the arrival of Celtic speakers by many thousands of years.
    • geocar 4 hours ago
      There were no Brythonic languages 15,000 years ago.

      What are you talking about?