Research overview: radiocarbon chronology of La Brea sabertooth deposits

This overview surveys efforts to date the Rancho La Brea deposits and place their sabertooth fossils in time. Because the asphalt pits accumulated remains over tens of thousands of years and because petroleum contamination complicates radiocarbon measurement, building a reliable chronology has required careful collagen purification and targeted dating of individual bones. The survey reviews how dated series of Smilodon fatalis and associated megafauna reveal the tempo of accumulation, document the persistence of the predator community through the last glacial interval, and constrain the timing of its disappearance near the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary. Such chronologies are central to testing whether climate change, prey loss, or human arrival drove the sabertooth's extinction in southern California.