The Castlepook Femur
The evidence is exceptionally uneven. Ireland has no securely identified house, hearth, grave, tool assemblage or settlement surface of this age. Its record comes principally from animal bones, cave deposits, glacial sediments, landforms and changing shorelines. These are powerful sources for reconstructing environments, but they do not provide an annal of a particular hunt, migration or season. Much of the island’s earlier surface archaeology was also vulnerable to erosion, burial and destruction as the last ice sheet expanded. Absence of a camp is not conclusive proof that no person ever entered Ireland; equally, it cannot be converted into proof of a settled population.