UCMP is pleased to announce the award of a new $149,713 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to curate, rehouse, and capture digital images of the important Pleistocene-Holocene McKittrick tarpit fossil collection from Kern County, California.
The McKittrick tarpits were excavated by Berkeley scientists in the 1930s and yielded thousands of bones of extinct and extant mammals, birds, and reptiles. The area was eventually designated a California State Historical Landmark due to the importance of these finds. These fossils span a key climatic transition and extinction event near the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and have direct relevance to other UCMP and UC Berkeley research initiatives. Unfortunately, the fossils, many of which are housed in the Campanile, have never been fully curated, and few people know of their importance. This funding gives us the support to conserve these fossils properly and develop web content and digital learning materials to highlight McKittrick and contrast the site to the better-known La Brea tarpits. We are excited by and grateful for the support of IMLS in helping us to share this important part of the story of California. The one-year project will kick off October 1, 2014.