BIRM-166 Between Tills
Archived: 19 September 2026
Around 31,124 BCE, Ireland lay within the climatically unstable Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a recordable historical year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between glacial tills, demonstrating local ice-free conditions between glacier advances. Its pollen, plants and small fossils indicate open, treeless, mossy and sedgy tundra wetland. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains remains of reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, predators and other cold-stage fauna, though not necessarily contemporaneous. No secure evidence confirms human occupation; a possibly cut-marked reindeer bone remains inconclusive. There were no known settlements, farming, polities or recorded societies. Environmental change, animal movement and glaciation define this period.