Several late Quaternary studies have recorded cold and disturbed climates centred during the mid-first millennium AD and discussed these conditions under the term ‘Dark Ages Cold Period’ (DACP). A review of 114 palaeoclimate papers indicated that cold climates were common in the Northern Hemisphere between AD 400 and 765. There are also suggestions that some regions may have been relatively wet during the DACP, while those around the Mediterranean and the China/Tibetan Plateau indicate coinciding droughts. A set of environmental responses, however, indicate a delayed DACP interval (AD 509–865) postdating the actual climate signal. Previously, the DACP has been linked with the North Atlantic ice-rafting event at about 1400 years ago, while some evidence suggests an involvement of the North Atlantic Oscillation and/or El Niño–Southern Oscillation. More recently, another proposed phase of widespread cooling, the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’ (LALIA), overlaps with the DACP and has been tentatively linked with volcanic aerosol and solar irradiance variations reinforcing the climatic downturn since AD 536. Importantly, a higher number of proxy records extending over the first millennium AD is required for more rigorous assessments of climate variability and the forcing during these centuries and to disentangle the DACP and LALIA fingerprints in the proxy data, particularly to determine whether the DACP and the LALIA are distinct features. Also a richer network of both climate and environmental proxies is needed to evaluate the human–environment interactions, during the historical Migration Period, and thus through the DACP.