LA BREA WOMAN'S INTERESTING - BUT UNSETTLING - LEGACY.Byline: - Carol Bidwell The remains of only one human being have been found among the more than 1 million fossils dug out of the La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits Fossil field in Hancock Park (formerly Rancho La Brea), Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. It is the site of “pitch springs” oozing crude oil, formerly used by local Indians for waterproofing, and was explored by Gaspar de Portolá's expedition in . Scientists at the George C. Page George C. Page was a farmer boy from Fremont, Nebraska who left for California at the age of sixteen because of an orange. He had only $2.30. He worked as a busboy and a dishwasher until he had earned $1000 dollars. Museum, where her partial skeleton is on display, call her La Brea Woman. Chris Shaw, director of collections at the museum, says paleontologists never will know for sure why the young woman was trapped in the ooze OOZE - Object oriented extension of Z. "Object Orientation in Z", S. Stepney et al eds, Springer 1992. about 9,000 years ago, but they have some educated guesses. While some have theorized that she was trapped, alive, in the sticky asphalt just like the animals that died there, others believe she may have been murdered and her body dumped there by her killer. Shaw has a much more benign explanation. He believes she was born near the asphalt deposits, where the existence of a small Chumash village has been documented, but went to live elsewhere. ``She obviously had a blunt-force injury to the head, which apparently caused her death,'' Shaw said. After her death, he believes she was returned to her home village and given a ceremonial burial. A few artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. - a grinding stone and shells - and the remains of a domestic dog were found placed around her skeleton. Then, Shaw theorizes, the asphalt seeped into her grave, both entombing and preserving her. La Brea Woman is on display in the Page Museum in a light-box display that might frighten young children. A hologram See holographic storage. technique shows La Brea Woman's upright skeleton and then, with the special-effects lighting, artificial muscles, skin and hair appear on her bones to show you what she might have looked like in life - an interesting, but unsettling un·set·tle v. un·set·tled, un·set·tling, un·set·tles v.tr. 1. To displace from a settled condition; disrupt. 2. To make uneasy; disturb. v.intr. look back in time. |
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