Mammoth and Reindeer at Castlepook
Archived: 5 October 2026
Around 30,220 BCE, Ireland lay in the later Marine Isotope Stage 3, approaching but preceding the Last Glacial Maximum. Conditions varied between expanding ice, frozen lowlands, snowfields and altered coastlines, while erosion has left a fragmentary record. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, produced over 2,000 bones, including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, bears, hyaenas, wolves, Arctic foxes and lemmings. Its deposits accumulated over long periods through natural and carnivore processes, not one event. A possibly stone-marked reindeer bone may indicate human presence around 33,000 years ago, but cannot demonstrate settlement. Castlepook instead records Ireland's intermittent ecological connection to cold north-western European ecosystems.