Rancho La Brea Excavations Master | Natural History Museum of Los Angeles

Soon thereafter, more and more paleontologists — amateurs and professionals alike — became interested in the seeps. Notably, Los Angeles High School biology teacher James Z. Gilbert who began a large excavation project in 1909, under the banner of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Rancho La Brea's long history of encouraging volunteerism in the young started with Gilbert; his excavation team largely consisted of his own students from Los Angeles High School. His relationship with the County of Los Angeles laid the groundwork for the founding of the Los Angeles Counthy Museum of History, Science, and Art, which is now the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Gilbert's Academy collections were some of the first moved into the new Museum in 1911, and mounted skeletons from Rancho La Brea were among the first exhibits in the Museum when it opened in 1913. 

Excavation at Rancho La Brea has continued, off and on, since 1913. Although much of the surrounding landscape has changed immensely, many of our fundamental excavation techniques have remained the same: bones are excavated using small hand tools, field data is recorded with pen and paper, and excavators still do their own shoring.  Even our measurement system has its roots in the grid system laid out by excavators in 1913. We supplement and support these techniques with new technology — electric lamps warm and soften the particularly dense asphalt of Project 23, digital cameras document day-to-day changes quickly and cheaply, and computerized databases allow us to search through collections with a modicum of ease — but we doubt anything will ever replace hand tools, pen, paper, and elbow grease.