Hyaena Hall’s Reindeer World
Archived: 17 September 2026
31,406 BCE is a modern label within Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a precisely recoverable Irish year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves pre-glacial wetland sediments indicating open, treeless, tundra-like ground with grasses, sedges, mosses, herbs and freshwater habitats. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains mixed, long-accumulated faunal remains, including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, hyaena, wolves, foxes and lemmings, evidencing cold open landscapes. A marked reindeer femur may indicate Upper Palaeolithic butchery, but cannot establish settlement or continuous occupation. No tools, hearths, burials or social institutions are securely known. Later glaciation and mixed deposits limit certainty, revealing active ecosystems rather than historical society.