Before the Ice Peak
The date falls in Marine Isotope Stage 3, a cold and climatically unstable part of the last glacial cycle, before the fullest development of the Last Glacial Maximum. The British–Irish Ice Sheet was not a fixed white blanket advancing everywhere at one speed. Ice expanded and contracted in distinct sectors, responding to climate, snowfall, sea level, topography and the behaviour of fast-flowing ice streams. Large reconstructions of the ice sheet identify the period from about 31,000 to 15,000 years before present as one of growth, maximum extent and retreat, with maximum ice volume and many outer margins reached later, broadly during the mid-20,000s years before present.