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Ice Age Fossils Found During Los Angeles Subway Exploration

Posted by timothy on from the global-warming-has-since-occurred dept.

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."

8 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Sea Lion head? by mendax · · Score: 2

    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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    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  2. Fossil? by mjwx · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    1. Re:Fossil? by invictusvoyd · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. Visit the Tar Pits museum, if you can by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
    1. Re:Visit the Tar Pits museum, if you can by mendax · · Score: 4, Informative

      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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      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  4. Re:the most common animals were dire wolves by Scarletdown · · Score: 2

    Not exactly. It was a Hollywolf sign, actually.

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  5. I'll be damned by wcrowe · · Score: 2

    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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    Proverbs 21:19
    1. Re:I'll be damned by The_Human_Diversion · · Score: 2

      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.