The Last Habitable Landscapes31801 BCE
Dateline
31,802 BCE is an archive reference year within the Late Pleistocene. No Irish event can be assigned securely to this exact date. The period is reconstructed from cave remains, freshwater deposits and glacial geology.
Before Wider Ice Cover
Some landscapes remained open, cold and biologically active even as the British-Irish Ice Sheet expanded. Tundra vegetation, freshwater habitats and large mammals formed part of this changing environment.
A Fragmentary Record
Later glaciation removed much of the earlier surface record. What survives must therefore be interpreted cautiously and at broad chronological scales.
Primary Sources
Research draws on Castlepook studies, Derryvree environmental evidence, BRITICE-CHRONO, National Museum collections and radiocarbon calibration research.
