Derryvree’s Tundra Drumlin
Archived: 21 September 2026
About 30,919 BCE, Ireland lay within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene, not a datable historical year. During MIS 3, advancing but uneven ice, permafrost and open tundra habitats varied regionally. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater sediments between tills indicate an ice-free interval, dated broadly by radiocarbon, with treeless periglacial vegetation. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyaena and other cold-adapted fauna, demonstrating intermittent ecological links with north-west Europe. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests, but does not prove, brief human presence. Evidence cannot support claims of settlement, polities, trade, religion or warfare at this horizon.