Mammoth Cave’s Uncertain Passage
Archived: 18 September 2026
Abstract
Around 31,237 BCE, a modern label rather than a recoverable Irish date, Ireland lay within the unstable cold conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 3. Lower sea levels altered routes and coasts, while local environments ranged from wetlands and open tundra to ice margins. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves sediments, plants and insects showing cold, treeless wetland conditions between glacial episodes. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, yielded mixed and reworked remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer and other cold-adapted fauna. A possibly stone-cut reindeer femur may indicate brief Upper Palaeolithic human activity, but lacks corroborating artefacts or deposits. Later glaciation erased earlier evidence.