Castlepook Hyena Den
Archived: 8 September 2026
Circa 34,000 years before present, Ireland experienced unstable late Ice-Age conditions before the Last Glacial Maximum. Lower seas and shifting ice created a landscape unlike modern Ireland, while later glaciation destroyed evidence. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves Ireland’s richest pre-maximum vertebrate record, including mammoth, giant deer, reindeer, bears, hyena, wolves and cold-adapted smaller mammals. Its deposits represent changing ecosystems, not a single contemporaneous fauna; hyenas accumulated many bones. Human occupation remains unproven. A possibly butchered reindeer bone may indicate a brief visit, but no settlements, tools, burials or cultures are securely known. Environmental change, rather than history, defines this period.