The Doneraile Bone Question
Archived: 24 September 2026
Abstract
Thirty thousand seven hundred and seventy BCE is a modern label for an imprecisely dated MIS 3 interval, not a recoverable Irish year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between tills, showing locally ice-free, cold, treeless wetland before renewed glaciation. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains mammoth, giant deer, reindeer and predators, evidencing a varied cold-stage fauna but not a single contemporaneous landscape. A reindeer femur, possibly cut by a stone tool, may indicate brief Upper Palaeolithic human activity. However, no associated tools, hearths or settlements exist. Later ice erosion obscured evidence, leaving human presence and continuity of occupation still unproven.