Did the Cairngorm Mountains support glaciers during the Little Ice Age?

The notion that glaciers may have existed in the Cairngorms during the Little Ice Age of the 16th–19th centuries CE has been extensively debated. Here I suggest that the dating evidence supporting this claim is ambivalent, and that attempts to model putative LIA glaciers have invoked an unrealistic temperature depression. Moreover, the modelling results conflict with geomorphological and stratigraphic evidence, as they retrodict LIA glaciers 40–100 m thick in corries occupied by mature talus accumulations, intact Lateglacial rock glaciers and undisturbed pre-LIA lake sediments. It is concluded that though development of niche glaciers in the Cairngorms during the LIA is feasible, there is no unequivocal evidence for the former existence of such glaciers.