BIRM-166’s Frostwater Flora
Archived: 17 September 2026
Abstract
31,360 BCE is a modern label within unstable Marine Isotope Stage 3, rather than a precisely identifiable Irish year. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater sediments between glacial tills record a locally ice-free, treeless tundra wetland, dated broadly to this period. Macrofossils, mosses and insects indicate cold-adapted herbs, sedges, pools and damp ground. Ireland’s ice cover and exposed sea routes varied regionally. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves MIS 3 remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, bear and hyaena. A possibly stone-cut reindeer femur may indicate transient human butchery, but no contemporary settlement, tools or other secure evidence confirms human occupation there.