Explore every Emerald Archives article connected with Aghnadarragh.
31710–31701 BCE
Around 31,703 BCE, Ireland lay within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene, as ice expanded before its later maximum. Later glaciation destroyed much evidence, but northern buried sediments preserve pollen, plants and beetles indicating treeless, cold grass-sedge tundra, wet hollows and Arctic-like conditions. Southern caves contain reindeer, giant deer, mammoth, bears, wolves and hyaenas, demonstrating changing habitats and animal movement. A cut-marked Castlepook reindeer bone may suggest transient human activity, but cannot prove settlement or occupation. Shifting seas and ice complicated access to Ireland. No evidence supports societies, trade or institutions. This period is understood through fragmentary deposits and radiocarbon ranges.
31770–31761 BCE
About 31,770 BCE, Ireland lay in the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene, although archaeological dating cannot identify conditions in a single year. Fermanagh sediments, including Aghnadarragh beetles, indicate cold, treeless tundra-like mosaics of grasses, shrubs, wetlands and seasonal pools, with severe winters and brief summers. Ireland was not necessarily fully ice-covered: the British–Irish Ice Sheet was expanding but had not reached its later maximum. Castlepook Cave preserves time-averaged remains of mammoth, reindeer, bear, hyaena and other fauna. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests early human activity, but cannot demonstrate settlement. Evidence supports environmental reconstruction, not claims about societies, routes or polities.
