Maguirebridge’s Tundra Record
The label 31,836 BCE gives a useful position on a modern timeline, but it cannot identify an event in Ireland during a particular year, season or generation. There are no written records, settlements, graves or securely dated occupation surfaces from which such precision could be claimed. In conventional “before present” notation, where present means 1950, the calendar arithmetic places this notional year at about 33,785 years BP. That is not itself a laboratory age. Radiocarbon measurements carry statistical uncertainty and must be calibrated against changing atmospheric carbon-14 levels; at this depth of time, their calendar ranges can span centuries or millennia.