Derryvree’s Road-Cut Wetland
Archived: 29 September 2026
Labelled 30,483 BCE, this period cannot be dated annually and is understood through Late Pleistocene geological and fossil evidence. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater silts and organic deposits lay between glacial tills, recording a locally ice-free wetland interval before renewed glaciation. Plant remains, mosses and insects indicate a cold, treeless mosaic of shallow water, sedges, herbs, grasses and sparse shrubs. Cave fauna elsewhere suggests diverse cold-stage animals, though not necessarily contemporaneous locally. Human residence remains unproven; a modified Castlepook reindeer bone may indicate a brief visit. Derryvree predates the Last Glacial Maximum, demonstrating ecological life between ice advances in Ireland.