Derryvree’s Intertill Record
For this remote period, Ireland’s history is principally environmental history. The archive consists not of chronicles, houses, graves or named communities, but of silts, sands, pollen, plant fragments, animal bones, cave deposits and the landforms created or altered by ice. Later glaciers erased, reworked or buried much of the earlier evidence. The absence of an archaeological site is therefore not proof that no human being ever entered Ireland; it is, however, decisive against writing a story of an identifiable population, camp or culture here in 30,860 BCE. There is no securely dated lithic assemblage, hearth, human bone, dwelling, artwork or burial that demonstrates a human presence in Ireland at this time.