Buckbean Under Drumlin Clay
Archived: 2 October 2026
About 30,369 BCE is only a modern label within broad dating ranges for late Marine Isotope Stage 3. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, organic freshwater sediments between glacial tills record an ice-free interval before renewed ice sealed the wetland. Plants, pollen, mosses and insects indicate shallow water, sedges, herbs and cold-adapted, largely treeless periglacial vegetation. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves diverse Ice Age fauna, although remains span uncertain periods and were often modified by carnivores. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests fleeting Upper Palaeolithic human activity, but proves neither settlement nor population. Together they reveal intermittent habitats, recolonisation, instability, not society.