BIRM-166’s Open Tundra
Archived: 23 September 2026
30,810 BCE is an artificial label, best understood within Late Pleistocene MIS 3 rather than as a recoverable Irish year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments dated to 36,900–31,700 calibrated years BP, indicating an ice-free, treeless tundra wetland later buried by glacial tills. Ireland's climate, ice cover, coastlines and habitats shifted. Crag Cave records milder conditions, while Castlepook Cave documents diverse cold-adapted fauna, though not one contemporaneous ecosystem. A marked reindeer bone may indicate human activity, but no settlement exists. Evidence supports a landscape of wetlands, roaming animals, growing ice and possible transient human passage, not identifiable societies or events.