Reply to the Discussion of “The ‘lost’ islands of Cardigan Bay, Wales, UK: insights into the post-glacial evolution of some Celtic coasts of northwest Europe” by Catherine Delano-Smith, Phil Bradford, and William Shannon

[摘要] Delano-Smith et al. (2022) provide a useful discussionconcerning the use of the Gough Map and associated datingin response to the paper by Haslett and Willis (2022), andtheir views are informative and welcomed. The opportunityto provide further comment is also welcomed and it is hopedthat this Reply addresses points raised and will be of benefitto the reader in further evaluating the research.The study by Haslett and Willis (2022) was prompted bythe depiction on the medieval Gough Map of two apparently‘lost’ islands in Cardigan Bay (Bae Ceredigion in Welsh)lying offshore the coast of Ceredigion in Wales, UK (see fig. 1of Haslett and Willis 2022 for locations mentioned herein).Therefore, the “starting point” for the study was not“medieval Welsh folklore about these islands” as stated byDelano-Smith et al. (2022, p. 261). Celtic literature andfolklore are subsequently considered under geomythologicalsources but Haslett and Willis (2022) do not present Celticliterature or folklore specifically about ‘islands’ in CardiganBay but rather a lowland. Furthermore, to clarify, Haslett andWillis (2022) do not claim “to ‘prove’ the existence of ‘lost’islands” (Delano-Smith et al. 2022, p. 264) but throughan examination of historical sources, physical aspects,and geomythological sources conclude that their existence is considered plausible. Through such investigation,Haslett and Willis (2022) present a preliminary post-glacialcoastal evolution model to provide a hypothetical frameworkwhich may be tested and evaluated through furtherresearch (e.g., Haslett and Willis, in press).

[学科分类] 地质学