Castlepook’s Spotted Hyenas
Archived: 23 September 2026
Around 30,809 BCE, Ireland lay within the unstable cold conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a precisely datable historical year. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater sediments between glacial tills record an ice-free interval with treeless, periglacial wetlands, sparse vegetation and shallow pools. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves remains of mammoth, giant deer, reindeer, hyena, wolves and other Ice Age animals, though deposits represent different episodes. A marked reindeer femur may indicate Upper Palaeolithic butchery, but cannot prove settlement or sustained occupation. Later glaciation and erosion obscured evidence. The period is chiefly understood through fragmented environmental and faunal archives alone.