Derryvree’s Paired Tills
Archived: 4 October 2026
Abstract
Around 30,271 BCE, Ireland has no recoverable year-specific history, only environmental evidence from the Late Pleistocene. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater organic sediments between two glacial tills indicate a temporary wet tundra landscape, dated broadly to roughly 34,950–29,750 BCE. Plants, insects and sediments reveal cold, treeless conditions with pools, sedges and mosses, contradicting ideas of continuous ice cover in many areas. Castlepook Cave's mixed faunal remains show that mammals, including reindeer, mammoth and hyaena, reached Ireland during Ice Age intervals. Possible tool damage on a reindeer bone suggests, but cannot confirm, brief human visits. Growing ice later obscured earlier traces.