Ice Age Fossils Found During Los Angeles Subway Exploration

An anonymous reader writes "During an exploratory dig to extend one of L.A.'s subway lines (yes! Los Angeles actually does have an underground), a host of fossils from the Ice Age were uncovered, including the skull of a sea lion. The dig site is close to the La Brea Tar Pits, where the preserved remains of various plants and animals were discovered in the early 1900s. The La Brea Tar Pit fossils are estimated to be between 11,000-55,000 years old, and the most common animals found were dire wolves."

the most common animals were dire wolves

[noh8rz10]

winter is coming!

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[arglebargle_xiv]

So that means that during the last ice age there'd have been a big Wolfswood sign up where the Hollywood sign is now?

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[Scarletdown]

Not exactly. It was a Hollywolf sign, actually.

This is cool but let's not delay commuter rail

[kriston]

This is cool but let's not delay commuter rail and subway construction.

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[Threni]

Delay it a little bit until all the important archaeological items have been safely extracted, surely? They've been there millions of years; another few months/years won't hurt.

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[NatasRevol]

But think of all the horribly delayed & self important LA-ians!

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[milkmage]

DELAYED.

they found a ship while excavating downtown San Francisco a few years back. construction stopped until the archaeologists had their fill.

it's not like a sailing ship from the late 1800's is Noah's Ark.. but they still took all they could find.

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[Daetrin]

I live along Wilshire, the street on (or rather, under) which they're building this subway, the Purple Line extension [wikipedia.org]. They just started a couple months ago. The first stage of the project is currently planned to last 9 years, which will cover 4 miles. A bit of trivia, it only took only ten years for the US to dig the 48 mile Panama canal through jungle and mountainous terrain. (To be fair, the French had already done about 15% of the excavation when the US acquired the project, but that ten year time span

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[Aighearach]

More likely it involves schedule juggling so the contractor can increase their margins, and would not impact the timeline at all.

This recently came up in my town, when push came to shove regarding the permit, the contractor ended up admitting the timeline for the project would be the same if they work at 4am or wait until 7am. But it would save them money. In this case it would have meant less hours running some sort of concrete dryer. So we decided that they should have planned to start at the locally allo

Underground?

[R3d M3rcury]

Actually, most of LA's subways are above ground.

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[Sique]

Ironically it might be still a subway. London and Berlin, two towns with very large subway systems, have them running in part above ground. And they are still called subways. It would be strange if a transport system changes names when it leaves a tunnel and changes it again when it enters the next one, as it happens several times on some lines in Berlin or London.

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[Sique]

Yes, there is the Berlin S-Bahn, but that's a completely different track system, and that's not what I am talking about.

Take the U2 [wikipedia.org] for instance, it is a line listed as U-Bahn (as you can see from the line number). It runs above ground from Ruhleben to Olympiastadion. Then it disappears in a tunnel until Wittenbergplatz. There it goes up a ramp, and then runs as elevated railway until Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park, where it goes down again in a tunnel. At Eberswalder Strasse, it appears again above ground an

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[Sique]

I just read the Wikipedia entry again, it seems to be a horrible attempt at automatically translating the german entry. You can tell from the fact that the station Kaiserdamm is called "Emperor dam", and that "Olympische Strasse" is still in the german grammar form ("Olympischen Strasse") of the original german sentence.

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[rossdee]

Both of the subway's in this town are above ground, at least the part where you go and order is - there might be some food storage areas in the basement or something.

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[mendax]

Actually, most of LA's subways are above ground.

You are probably confusing the subway with the trolley lines and the Metro Link trains, all of which run above ground for the most part.

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[Barsteward]

So is london's but only just. 55% of it is above ground

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[Big Hairy Ian]

Actually, most of LA's subways are above ground.

Damn! I was about to make a H. G. Wells reference :)

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[FatdogHaiku]

Actually, most of LA's subways are above ground.

So, they are just "ways"? It's almost like someone said "Hey, let's take the buses and put them on tracks!"

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[Aighearach]

subway, well, it is below something. It isn't like they're called sub-street ways. Subways gives a lot of latitude.

Also, what if one end is underground? Then it would still be a sub-ground way, at least enough to join the set.

Sea Lion head?

[mendax]

This is very interesting. You aren't going to find clams and sea lion heads in the La Brea tar pits. The most unusual thing I can recall they've found in there was a human skeleton of a native American woman who was bashed on the head and her body dumped in a pit.

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[riverat1]

Finding a sea lion head surprised me considering how much lower sea levels were at the time.

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[mythosaz]

Finding a sea lion head surprised me considering how much lower sea levels were at the time.

Pretty sure they've always been at sea level... :)

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[OakDragon]

baby

Fossil?

[mjwx]

However upon closer inspection, they found out the fossil was just Keith Richards who had wandered into the construction site.

Re:Fossil?

[invictusvoyd]

He befriended some other fossils there and now plans to form a new group : The Strolling Bones

Re: Hipster Fossils..

[James Ruiz]

They lived in LA before it was LA!

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[Buck Feta]

They lived in LA before it was cool

These are Ice Age fossils... trust me, when they lived there, LA was very cool.

Visit the Tar Pits museum, if you can

[GPS Pilot]

It's an amazing place. They have a large wall covered with dire wolf skulls, just to show off how many dire wolf skeletons have been dug up.

Re:Visit the Tar Pits museum, if you can

[mendax]

It's an amazing place. They have a large wall covered with dire wolf skulls, just to show off how many dire wolf skeletons have been dug up.

It is an amazing place and easy to get to without a car. They also have either a woolly mammoth, a mastodon, or both on display, or did the last time I was there. The museum is evidence that the Los Angeles area was a kind of Garden of Eden during the last Ice Age. Of course, every Eden has to have its serpent to spoil it. In that place, the serpent was the saber-toothed lion.

And while you're there, the county art museum is next door if you like that kind of thing.

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[ignavus]

It is an amazing place and easy to get to without a car.

A lot of animals certainly discovered how easy it was to get to without a car.

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[140Mandak262Jamuna]

What is special about La Brea tar pits is that they get multiple specimens of the same species, males, females, juveniles, old and young. They get complete skeletons instead of a few disjoint pieces. They are chronically short of funds. They have dug up huge blocks which are presently sitting covered in tarps because they don't have the resources to properly pry the fossils off these blocks. Earlier they used to discard the "matrix" and go after the big bones. Now they realize the matrix has tons and tons o

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[jittles]

The least the producers of the Big Bang Theory could have done is to pay some decent fees to the museum and written an episode to place inside the museum. Those cheapskates just had one scene outside in the bus stop and a stuffed toy from the museum.

It is possible (however unlikely it may be), that they tried to film on location and they would not grant them access for some reason other than financial reasons. I am sure there are all sorts of restrictions and limitations on what they allow, and perhaps that was the issue instead of money? Who knows.

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[argStyopa]

Considering how ubiquitous they are, one would imagine that would be a great candidate for DNA mining, retrieval, reassembly, and ultimately, recreation.

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[cellocgw]

They have a large wall covered with dire wolf skulls, just to show off how many dire wolf skeletons have been dug up.

Hey, do the Starks know about this?

(gimme a break here: the new season is just about to start)

EQ?

[kauaidiver]

My ranger used to kite dire-wolves... And my tree-hugging druid too.

Dig Dig Dig

[BeckyAEllis]

Dig more along the stretch. I guess you'll find a lot more down there. But get a lil bit faster the railway has been clogged.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What's a tree box?

[Muad'Dave]

... crated with wooden planks into tree boxes ...

Dear Page Museum: No website feedback link/address, no correction notification.

La Raza announced they were Mexican

[gelfling]

And told the subway to leave its illegal occupation

I'll be damned

[wcrowe]

I didn't know dire wolves were real. I just thought it was some BS that George R. R. Martin came up with.

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[The_Human_Diversion]

I didn't know dire wolves were real. I just thought it was some BS that George R. R. Martin came up with.

Of course they're real, they're large 5 hit die creatures that have a bite attack and can trip with that attack. You often see druids and rangers taking them as animal companions.

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[OhSoLaMeow]

I didn't know dire wolves were real. I just thought it was some BS that George R. R. Martin came up with.

Of course they're real, they're large 5 hit die creatures that have a bite attack and can trip with that attack. You often see druids and rangers taking them as animal companions.

And Jerry Garcia even wrote about them. Of course they're real

In the backwash of Fennario
The black and bloody mire
The dire wolf collects his due
While the boys sing 'round the fire

Don't murder me, I beg of you
Don't murder me, please, don't murder me

You guys know what a dire wolf is, right?

[Patent Lover]

It's like a wolf, but dire.