La Brea Tar Pits dates from the Pleistocene era.
La Brea tar pits, containing one of the richest, best preserved, and best studied assemblages of Pleistocenevertebrates, including at least 59 species of mammal and over 135 species of bird. The tar pit fossils bear eloquent witness to life in southern California from 40,000 to 8,000 years ago; aside from vertebrates, they include plants, mollusks, and insects— over 660 species of organisms in all.
Life in Los Angeles was somewhat cooler and moister 40,000 years ago than it is today.
Native horses, camels, mammoths and mastodons, longhorned bison, and sabre-toothed cats, giant sloths were all found there.
Saber-tooth cats — known as Smilodon fatalis — lived in North America from about 500,000 to 11,000 years ago and have no direct living descendants.
Dire wolves, aka Canis dirus, were heavier and stockier compatriots of grey wolves, with whom they co-existed on the continent before disappearing about 12,000 years ago.
Dire Wolf Wall that magnificently displays 400 skulls.
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Krista Marson 