Derryvree’s Freshwater Mosses
Archived: 27 September 2026
Thirty thousand, five hundred and sixty-four BCE is only a nominal date within Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a recoverable Irish year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, provides key evidence: freshwater organic beds between glacial tills show a locally ice-free interval, broadly dated 34,950–29,750 BCE. Mosses, sedges and insects indicate cold, treeless wetlands, rather than uniform ice cover. Other deposits and Castlepook Cave fauna demonstrate changing habitats supporting cold-adapted animals, including reindeer and mammoth, at different times. A possibly butchered reindeer bone suggests human presence, but proves neither settlement nor culture. Ice advances preserved and disturbed evidence before the Last Glacial Maximum.