Paleontologists unearthed fossil deposits in southwestern China that necessitate a rewrite of textbooks. Previously, the prevailing theory held that the majority of contemporary animal species emerged suddenly around 540 million years ago during the so-called “Cambrian explosion.” However, this recent discovery substantiates that complex organisms were already present 550 million years ago, preceding the Cambrian period.
According to the Chinese scientific journal Science China Earth Sciences, the excavation work took place near Fuxian Lake in Yunnan province. Researchers analyzed 700 ancient multicellular organisms. This collection included the most ancient forerunners of mammals (and consequently, humans), probable ancestors of starfish, and creatures boasting numerous tentacles entirely unfamiliar to science.
“This marks the first instance where we have been able to demonstrate the existence of many complex organisms even during the Ediacaran period,” stated research associate Li Gaozong.
Why had they remained undiscovered until now? The earliest complex life forms possessed soft bodies, which seldom fossilize well. In this instance, a remarkable event occurred: soft tissues were imprinted in hydrocarbon films and preserved that way for half a billion years. Consequently, the “Cambrian explosion” was evidently not instantaneous—it was a process unfolding over tens of millions of years. Our inability to observe it was simply due to the nature of the preservation.
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