Castlepook’s Open Corridor
Archived: 15 September 2026
31,638 BCE is only a modern nominal date, within climatically volatile Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a recoverable year of Irish history. Ireland experienced shifting coastlines, ice fronts and potential migration routes before maximum glaciation. Derryvree sediments in Fermanagh indicate cold, open, wet tundra conditions between glacial advances. Castlepook Cave's fauna, including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, predators and Arctic species, demonstrates a varied cold-stage ecosystem. A possibly tool-marked reindeer bone suggests, but cannot prove, brief human activity. No secure evidence supports settlement or continuity. Climatic deterioration later restricted habitats and corridors; securely evidenced human occupation belongs only to postglacial Ireland.