BIRM-166 Roadcut Silts
Archived: 1 October 2026
Around 30,406 BCE, Ireland has no recoverable year-specific human history; the date lies within a broad Late Pleistocene range represented by Derryvree, County Fermanagh. Roadworks exposed freshwater organic silts and sands between two glacial tills, dated Birm-166 to about 36,900–31,700 calibrated years BP. They record a temporary, locally ice-free wetland amid climatic instability preceding the Last Glacial Maximum. Macrofossils reveal treeless tundra with grasses, sedges, dwarf willow, juniper, mosses and aquatic plants. Comparable evidence permits cold-adapted fauna but not local sightings. No secure human occupation existed. Later ice buried and preserved this exceptional environmental archive for more than thirty millennia.