Castlepook’s Single Cutmark
Archived: 19 September 2026
Labelled 31,138 BCE, this period cannot represent a recorded Irish year, but falls within a broad late-Pleistocene chronological range. Derryvree sediments in Fermanagh preserve evidence of cold, treeless wetland between glacial advances, while other deposits and Crag Cave calcite demonstrate changing regional conditions. Around 31,000 years ago, the British–Irish Ice Sheet was expanding, reshaping landscapes and obscuring archaeological traces. Castlepook Cave’s cold-stage fauna includes a reindeer femur with a possible stone-tool cutmark, suggesting, but not proving, brief human activity. No settlement, culture, routes, politics or society can be reconstructed. The period’s history is environmental, reconstructed from sediments, bones and dating.