Bittlestone is not the first to have suggested something along these lines, but he is the first to argue it systematically and with a full account of how this might be geologically possible and archaeologically proven.

Though neither a classicist nor a geologist by training, he makes an impressive and enthralling case…the account of how he reached his conclusions is clear, engaging, funny, wonderfully illustrated – and informed by the work of leading specialists whose contributions are generously acknowledged.

There seems to be no doubt at all that Paliki was once a separate island from the rest of Kefalonia. There is a very fair chance indeed that when Homeric Greeks spoke of “Ithaca”, this island (which would, after all, have been the westernmost in the group) is what they would have had in mind.