Crag Cave’s Flowstone Record
Archived: 19 September 2026
31,196 BCE is not recoverable as a discrete Irish year, but falls within a Late Pleistocene interval of climatic instability. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves an ice-free phase between glaciations, with freshwater sediments recording open, treeless tundra wetland. Flowstone at Crag Cave indicates groundwater and locally non-glacial conditions in south-west Ireland during wider transition towards renewed ice-sheet expansion. Castlepook Cave documents diverse cold-adapted fauna, although its deposits combine episodes and processes. A marked reindeer femur may indicate Upper Palaeolithic butchery, yet cannot demonstrate settlement. Evidence supports changing habitats, animal movements and possible brief human presence, rather than events or known societies.