Castlepook Hyaenids
Archived: 17 September 2026
Labelled 31,376 BCE, this period cannot be reconstructed as a single Irish year, but falls within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves an ice-free interval between glaciations, when cold, treeless wetlands supported freshwater plants and insects. Growing ice, altered coastlines and later erosion produced a patchy, seasonal landscape and destroyed much evidence. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains time-averaged remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyaena and other cold-adapted fauna, indicating intermittent animal movements. No secure human settlement is known. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests provisional human activity. Its record survives in sediments, fossils and glacial landforms.
