The Awbeg Reindeer Incision
This was not yet the Last Glacial Maximum, the later phase when the British–Irish Ice Sheet reached its greatest extent. Current reconstructions place the maximum expansion of ice around Ireland and its continental shelf broadly between about 27,000 and 23,000 calibrated years before present, although the timing differed between sectors. Around the notional date considered here, ice was growing on a continental scale, sea level was falling, and Ireland’s geography was changing rapidly. Low sea level exposed areas that are now seabed, while glaciers, meltwater and permafrost altered routes across the wider Irish–British region. That did not necessarily make travel simple: exposed ground could be cold, boggy, cut by rivers, or blocked by ice and unstable margins.