Scientists dig up Ice Age bones in mid Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The bone-digging season began Thursday in Los Angeles for paleontologists sifting through the world's only active Ice Age excavation site in a major metropolitan area.

Two months a year, scientists and volunteers descend 15 feet underground in the midst of Los Angeles, to remove, clean and catalogue a baffling array of Ice Age biodiversity at a site known as La Brea Tar Pits.

This abyss is tucked between world-class art museums, high-rise condominiums and some of the busiest automobile traffic in the United States. The site is even an unknown to many city residents.

But since 1969, scientists have mined this urban bone yard and built a massive collection of pre-history, with some bones dating back 40,000 years.

"This is the richest Ice Age deposit in the world," chief curator of the Tar Pits, John Harris told AFP. "We will still be pulling out bones in 20 years."

Last summer scientists removed some 3,000 bones from the site, from the jawbones of mice, to the leg bones of mastodons. The site was first discovered in 1915 during construction of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The collections now approach four million items from 12 deposits spread over several acres, including more than 650 species of plants and animals.