Mosses Between the Tills
Archived: 14 September 2026
Abstract
Around 31,795 BCE, Ireland lay within an unstable Late Pleistocene cold phase, rather than the later Last Glacial Maximum. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, sediments between glacial tills preserve evidence of treeless tundra wetlands, with mosses, sedges, dwarf birch, insects and freshwater pools. Lower sea levels altered coasts, but no certain land bridge or travel routes can be identified. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, records cold-adapted mammals, including reindeer, mammoth and hyaena. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests an early human visit, not settlement. No securely dated occupation exists; any presence was likely brief, mobile and vulnerable to severe advancing glacial ice.