The last vestige of affordable housing in Los Angeles, the La Brea Tar Pits, has spat out more Los Angeles history recently with the discovery of a mastodon skeleton at the nearby excavation of LACMA. You may recall that the excavation has generated many concerned R&B questions having to do with suspicious dirt hauling trucks. Tar pit enthusiasts, and scientists, expect even more skeletons and ancient evils to turn up as tunneling begins for the extension of the Red Line. Apparently, even squirrels and house cats are getting sucked into the sticky black tar pits on a daily basis.
"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles," US architect, Frank Lloyd Wright once joked. Thousands of ancient mammals were just passing through the prehistoric Los Angeles basin when they were trapped in the bubbling black ooze formed by the petroleum. The pit is staggering even to the excavators.
"Everywhere you look there are bones," said former anatomy professor and volunteer excavator, Jean Moore.
We can only imagine what bony starlets future explorers will find when they excavate the tar pits.
· Scientists dig up Ice Age bones in LA [IOL]