The Doneraile Bone Mark
Archived: 10 September 2026
Abstract
Modern dating places 31,817 BCE within a broad, uncertain Marine Isotope Stage 3 range, rather than a recoverable historical year. Deposits at Derryvree in Fermanagh show that parts of Ireland supported cold, treeless tundra, freshwater hollows and grazing fauna between glacial advances. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves reindeer, mammoth, hyaena and other Ice Age remains, reflecting a wider north-west European ecology. A deep mark on a reindeer femur may be a stone-tool butchery cut, offering evidence of Upper Palaeolithic visitors. However, disturbance, dating limits and absent associated finds preclude claims for settlement, society or continuity. Later ice expansion erased evidence.