Elephant Hall Bone Sands
The Irish site most relevant to this point is Castlepook Cave, also called Mammoth Cave, near Doneraile in north County Cork. Its narrow limestone passages include chambers named Elephant Hall, Hyaena Hall and the Gallery of Aged Carnivores. Excavations between 1904 and 1913 recovered more than 2,000 animal bones and teeth from sands beneath and between stalagmite floors. Geological Survey Ireland describes Castlepook as Ireland’s richest known archive for vertebrate life in the long interval leading towards the Last Glacial Maximum. Individual specimens from its collections have produced dates spanning approximately 45,700 to 19,950 radiocarbon years BP: an immense stretch of time, not one contemporaneous animal community.