The La Brea Tar Pits, one of the most famous places in the world for archaeological digs, is, these days, again home to one of the most important discoveries of the year – an important cache of Ice Age fossils, which will undoubtedly keep scientists occupied for a long period of time. The site is located in Los Angeles, America's second-most populous city, and now boasts a mammoth and a lion skeleton, as well as the remains of several saber-tooth cats and other mammals of the time.
Among other beasts that met their demise at La Brea, an archaeological team unearthed bone fragments from dire wolves, bison, horses, and ground sloths, which are invaluable together, as far as their historic significance goes. Since 2006, when the site was given a lot of attention, more than 16 deposits have been found next to some tar pits in the middle of LA. Now, the almost-full skeleton of the mammoth, still featuring its 10 foot (3 meter)-long tusks, has been recovered from an adjacent fossilized riverbed, which dried up millions of years ago.
The Tar Pits were first excavated more than a century ago, and have already yielded other results, such as more smaller mammals, but also fossils of insects and critters, which make nice additions to Ice Age exhibitions worldwide. Archaeologists from the Page Museum have been behind the newest discoveries, and are now ecstatic that their collection may double in size after the site is thoroughly cleaned up of all its contents.
However, the researchers have to move fast, because the deadline for their digs will soon expire, and the site will be excavated to make way for an underground parking lot for a nearby art museum. So the people involved in the project have had to box everything and carry it off-site. This operation has been dubbed Project 23, on account of the 23 boxes in which they needed to remove all the remains they unburied from the La Brea Tar Pits.
According to carbon dating, somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago, a large number of mammoths, saber-tooth cats, mastodons, and other Ice Age creatures were trapped by oozing asphalt, which came up from the ground via cracks and other such formations. Basically, a significant number of animals became immobilized and died, as evidenced by the fact that the place has yielded thus far more than 1 million bones in total.
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