Castlepook’s Reindeer Passage
“31,898 BCE” is a modern conversion, not a date anyone living then could have recognised. No written records, settlements, graves, hearths, tool assemblages or works of art securely belong to this particular point in Irish prehistory. Even the broad chronology needs care. Radiocarbon ages are measured in radiocarbon years before present and then calibrated against independently dated records, including tree rings and other archives, to estimate calendar ages. At around 34,000 calendar years ago, the calibration curve is less precise than it is for recent millennia. A specimen may be assigned a calibrated probability range, while the event that deposited or altered it may remain less securely dated still.