Ancient cave art reveals first humans in Ireland came from Wales

Scientists have uncovered evidence that a now‑submerged land bridge once linked Wales and Ireland during the last Ice Age. Geological surveys and marine core samples from the Irish Sea show a strip of continental shelf that was exposed when sea levels dropped more than 120 meters, creating a continuous stretch of land that would have connected the two islands. The discovery, announced by a team from the University of Cambridge in a paper published in *Nature Geoscience*, relied on high‑resolution bathymetric mapping and the dating of glacial deposits found along the proposed corridor.

The existence of this “lost land bridge” has important implications for understanding prehistoric human and animal migrations. During the period when the bridge was exposed, early humans, as well as megafauna such as woolly mammoths and brown bears, could have moved freely between the British and Irish landscapes. The new data also refine models of how sea‑level changes shaped the distribution of flora and fauna across the British Isles, suggesting that the bridge may have served as a critical corridor for species dispersal during the Pleistocene.

Researchers plan to conduct further fieldwork to map the exact extent of the former land bridge and to investigate the archaeological record for evidence of early human activity along the route. If confirmed, the findings will add a new chapter to the history of human settlement in the region and underscore the dynamic nature of the British Isles’ geography during glacial cycles.