The Awbeg Faunal Window
Archived: 9 September 2026
Around 31,878 BCE, Ireland lay within the unstable cold conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 3, before the Last Glacial Maximum. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments indicating an ice-free, treeless wet-tundra landscape of sedges, grasses, mosses and juniper. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, yielded late Pleistocene fauna including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, horse, bear, wolf, arctic fox and hyaena. These sites demonstrate surviving habitats and grazing land before major ice-sheet expansion. Possible butchered bones raise, but do not prove, human presence. No secure evidence supports settlement, farming, communities or specific events. Dating ranges, disturbed deposits and later glaciation require cautious interpretation.