Explore every Emerald Archives article connected with Maguirebridge.
31610–31601 BCE
31,610 BCE denotes a Late Pleistocene interval, rather than a datable event. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, organic freshwater sediments between glacial tills record an ice-free, periglacial wetland during MIS 3, with tundra vegetation, insects and seasonal cold. Other evidence confirms uneven ice-sheet growth before its later maximum. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves remains of mammoth, giant deer, reindeer and predators, although its deposits span multiple periods. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests a brief Upper Palaeolithic human visit, not settlement. No evidence supports claims about politics, culture, trade or permanent population. Ireland was environmentally dynamic, biologically inhabited and increasingly glaciated.
31710–31701 BCE
Labelled 31,709 BCE only conventionally, this period in Ireland belongs to unstable Late Pleistocene Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a precisely datable event. Derryvree, near Maguiresbridge, preserves freshwater sediments indicating treeless, frost-prone tundra, wetland plants and enduring seasonal ecosystems. Castlepook Cave's bones, accumulated over millennia, document mammoth, giant deer, reindeer, hyaena and other cold-adapted fauna. A possibly stone-tool-cut reindeer femur suggests an early human visit or butchery, but proves neither settlement nor continuous population. Subsequent ice-sheet expansion reshaped and obscured evidence. Ireland was environmentally dynamic, ecologically active and sparsely documented, with claims about society, identity or politics unsupported by evidence.
