The article highlights a compelling contrast: Derryvree preserves detailed evidence of treeless wetlands between glacial episodes, whereas Castlepook offers only a possible human trace in a marked reindeer bone. This imbalance makes interpretation difficult, since later ice may have erased camps, tools and other signs of short visits. The material therefore encourages caution without excluding mobility across a changing, partly connected Pleistocene landscape. In considering Ireland’s Late Pleistocene past, how might archaeologists combine cave taphonomy, environmental reconstruction, improved dating and comparisons with nearby regions to judge whether the bone mark represents an isolated encounter or evidence of intermittent human movement?