Explore every Emerald Archives article connected with Tundra.
31780–31771 BCE
Nominally 31,780 BCE, this period cannot be reconstructed as a historical year, but falls within the climatically variable Late Pleistocene MIS 3. Inter-till deposits at Derryvree and Greenagho, County Fermanagh, show episodes of ice-free, wet, treeless tundra before later glacial expansion. Cave records confirm environmental fluctuation, while lower sea levels altered coasts and buried or eroded potential sites. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves MIS 3 fauna including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer and predators. A marked reindeer bone may indicate human butchery around 31,000 BC, yet lacks secure archaeological context. Ireland’s evidence therefore documents ecosystems and a possible, transient human presence.
31790–31781 BCE
Even the conversion from an ancient radiocarbon measurement to a calendar range requires care. Radiocarbon years are not identical to calendar years because atmospheric carbon-14 has varied over time. The Derryvree organic bed produced a conventional age of 30,500 radiocarbon years before present, with a substantial uncertainty. Modern calibration curves translate such results into probability ranges rather than exact points. The farther back in time, the more essential that distinction becomes. A numbered BCE year can be useful for arranging a long historical sequence, but it must not suggest a degree of precision that the evidence cannot sustain.
31820–31811 BCE
Around 31,812 BCE, Ireland lay within the unstable cold conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a precisely datable historical year. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater silts later sealed beneath glacial till show an ice-free wet tundra of sedges, mosses, herbs, pools and seasonal freezing. Crag Cave calcite indicates episodic liquid-water conditions, confirming climatic variability. Cave faunas, including reindeer and mammoth, reflect harsh environments but uncertain dates and associations. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone offers only tentative evidence of human activity. No settlements, polities or economy are known. Changing ice and sea levels made access uncertain before glaciation reshaped Ireland.
