Workers digging for a parking garage for the Los Angeles Museum of Art near the La Brea tar pits in 2007 discovered a nearly-intact mammoth skeleton and a trove of other bones that researchers say could double the size of the site's collection of fossils dating from the earth's last ice age.

Researchers made the announcement this week.

The fossils were removed from the site by an independent contractor hired to dig the site for an underground parking garage and were given to the George C. Page Museum six months ago.

Among the other fossils are the skull and other bones of a prehistoric American lion, which was believed to be to be about one-third larger than the present-day African lion, and bones of dire wolves, saber-tooth cats, ground sloths, bison and other animals, the New York Times reported. But the mammoth skeleton find was the most significant discovery because the tar pits had previously only yielded pieces of the elephant ancestor.