A bone from a bison that roamed Southern California some 10,000 years ago was unearthed at a Metro construction site in Los Angeles' Leimert Park, according to the transportation agency.
The bone was discovered about 70 feet below street level at the future site of Metro's Crenshaw/LAX Line Martin Luther King Jr. station, the agency said in a blog post Tuesday.
It was sent to the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, where experts identified the bone as the proximal right tibia of a bison antiquus, or right rear leg of an ancient bison.
According to Metro, the bone is between 10,000 and 18,000 years old and was found in alluvial soil, which indicates that a river ran through Leimert Park in the Pleistocene epoch.
"Ancient bison were common in Southern California during that time," Metro said. "Bison antiquus are considered ancestors to modern bison."
Metro said the bone will be donated for research to the Natural History Museum once the construction project is complete. Until then, it will be stored in a lab.
