Columbian mammoth remains, thousands of other fossils found while building LACMA parking structure

Instead of putting the brakes on the construction, LACMA turned to its next-door neighbor, the Page Museum (located at the site best known as the La Brea Tar Pits) and allowed their paleontologists to work day and night to extract 23 huge tree boxes full of materials that are now deemed Project 23.

Some of those discoveries are now available for the public to see in the Fishbowl lab at the Page Museum; many more are being slowly excavated in and around the museum.

"Project 23 is showing up some real gems," said Aisling Farrell, collections manager of the Page Museum. "Not only are we starting to recognize individual animals by their associated skeletons but we are also finding thousands of tiny microfossils that will help fill in the background picture to the Los Angeles landscape 10,000 to 40,000 years ago. We have pint wood that shows bark beetle damage, puparia from blow flies that hatched on the rotting carcasses before they were buried, shrew teeth, lizard scales, snake vertebrae, turtle toes and the list goes on."

Although evidence that camels and sabertoothed kittens roamed where The Grove now sits boggles the mind, the sight of a Zed, a newly discovered mammoth, and his giant skull drives home the fact that Los Angeles was once quite different than it is today.

"This Columbian mammoth is the most complete mammoth that we have ever found at La Brea Tar Pits," Farrell said about Zed. "Along with the skull we also have both tusks, the lower jaws, most of the vertebrae, all the ribs, pelvis, both scapulae, both humeri, a femur and tibia and a number of ankle, wrist and toe bones. This individual had several broken and healed ribs in life along with several fused vertebrae in his lower back."

Of the 23 boxes, so far 16,097 specimens have been excavated thanks to over 28,500 hours of activity by staffers and volunteers. Inside the lab nearly 3,000 fossils have been prepared. For a fascinating look at L.A.'s animal past, you might want to step into the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.