Greenagho’s Tundra Basin
For Ireland, this was the Middle Midlandian phase of the last glacial cycle: a long, unevenly cold era in which climate, ice cover, sea level and animal ranges repeatedly changed. The island’s later historical map is of little use here. There were no counties, settlements, peoples or political territories in the documentary sense. Even whether Ireland was continuously inhabited at this point cannot be demonstrated. What survives instead are deposits beneath later glacial sediments, cave-bone collections, pollen and plant remains, landforms, and laboratory dates. Each is a fragment with its own strengths and limitations.