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The La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years.
The Tar Pits have fascinated scientists and visitors for over a century, and today, this area is the only actively excavated Ice Age fossil site found in an urban location in the world! Over the last 50,000 years, Ice Age animals, plants, and insects were trapped in sticky asphalt, which preserved them for us to find today.
- Not Tar... Asphalt. Asphalt bubbling up from below ground at the La Brea Tar Pits pond. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. To be clear: the La Brea Tar Pits are not actually composed of tar at all.
- Only A Few Inches Deep. Smilodon californicus (Saber-Tooth Cat) and Canis dirus (Dire Wolf) fight over a Mammuthus columbi (Columbian Mammoth) carcass in the La Brea Tar Pits.
- Asphalt is an Amazing Preservative. La Brea Tar Pits lab worker cleans asphalt from a 40,000-year-old bison bone. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. Asphalt is not easily removed from fossil remains, as La Brea Tar Pits paleontologists can tell you, but skeletal remains encased in it are kept in pristine condition.
- No Dinosaur Fossils... Ice Age Fossils. Mural portraying Ice Age Los Angeles at La Brea Tar Pits & Museum. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. Fossils found in the La Brea Tar Pits only date from the very end of the Pleistocene epoch (also known as the Ice Ages), from 11,700 to 50,000 years ago, which still falls within our current Cenozoic Era.
Step into an Ice Age adventure. Unearth mysteries deep beneath your feet, witness fossil discoveries, and explore exhibits of mammoth proportions. Dive into a unique journey through time, as you investigate the science and history preserved by the Tar Pits.
The remains of only one human have ever been recovered from the pits, when a skull and partial skeleton were discovered in 1914. Anthropological analysis revealed they belonged to a 20-year-old woman, now called La Brea Woman, who lived 9,000 years ago and possibly died from a blow to the head.
Jul 30, 2021 · The La Brea Tar Pits & Museum has the world's largest collection of Ice Age fossils, dating from roughly 10–50,000 years ago. When the fossils in Project 23 were found during the Pritzker Parking Garage excavation, it was astounding.
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A sculpted mammoth shows visitors to the La Brea Tar Pits what these ancient animals might have looked like, but the pits themselves have looked the same for thousands of years. How did they form, and what discoveries lie beneath the sticky surface?
