Explore every Emerald Archives article connected with Hyenahall.
31710–31701 BCE
Labelled 31,707 BCE, this period in Ireland belongs broadly to fluctuating Marine Isotope Stage 3, rather than a precisely datable year. Sparse, disturbed evidence indicates that some open, cold landscapes supported mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, lemmings, Arctic foxes, wolves, bears and spotted hyaenas before extensive later glaciation. Castlepook Cave in County Cork accumulated bones over millennia and uniquely records Irish spotted hyaena, revealing overlapping animal activity rather than a single fauna. Fermanagh deposits confirm cold freshwater tundra conditions. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone suggests human presence, but no secure evidence demonstrates sustained settlement, population, culture or institutions. Ice obscured evidence.
31740–31731 BCE
About 33,700 calibrated years before 1950, Ireland lay in a cold, unstable MIS 3 landscape preceding maximum glaciation, with some ice-free ground, periglacial conditions and lower sea levels. Derryvree deposits in Fermanagh preserve tundra-like wetland vegetation, demonstrating locally habitable terrain. Castlepook Cave, Cork, contains Ireland’s richest pre-glacial vertebrate archive, including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyaena, wolf and bear, though its time-mixed, carnivore-modified deposits demand caution. A possibly tool-marked reindeer bone suggests, but cannot prove, brief human presence. No political, cultural or settled community is recoverable; fauna instead reveal changing ecological links with north-west Europe during favourable intervals before extensive ice.
