Derryvree’s freshwater sediments offer a vivid yet deliberately limited view of Late Pleistocene Ireland: they establish ice-free, tundra conditions in north-central Ireland, while Castlepook’s bones indicate wider faunal possibilities without proving that particular animals, or people, occupied the same places simultaneously. This contrast highlights how different archives operate at different chronological and geographical scales. The debated cut-marked reindeer bone is especially thought-provoking, because it permits cautious consideration of early human visits without demonstrating settlement. How should researchers combine local environmental records, cave assemblages and isolated modified bones to assess whether highly mobile hunter-gatherers ever used Ireland’s seasonally shifting cold-stage landscapes?