Giant mysterious jars that may have been used for burial rituals have been unearthed across four new sites in Assam, India. The discovery comes from a major collaboration involving researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).
The 65 newly discovered sandstone jars vary in shape and decoration, with some tall and cylindrical, and others partly or fully buried in the ground.
Similar jars, some of which span up to three metres high and two metres wide, have previously been uncovered in Laos and Indonesia.
“We still don’t know who made the giant jars or where they lived. It’s all a bit of a mystery,” ANU PhD student Nicholas Skopal said.
Another mystery is what the giant jars were used for. The researchers believe it is likely they were associated with mortuary practices.
“There are stories from the Naga people, the current ethnic groups in north-east India, of finding the Assam jars filled with cremated remains, beads and other material artefacts,” Mr Skopal said.
This theory aligns with findings from the other jar sites in countries including Laos, which are also tied to burial rituals.
Initially, the aim of the new research was to survey the existing sites in Assam. However, as the researchers moved about the landscape they realised there was more to be uncovered.
“At the start, the team just went in to survey three large sites that hadn’t been formally surveyed. From there grids were set up to explore the surrounding densely forested regions,” Mr Skopal said.
“This is when we first started finding new jar sites.
“The team only searched a very limited area so there are likely to be a lot more out there, we just don’t yet know where they are.”
The surveying and reporting of these sites are of great importance in regard to heritage management in India.
“It seems as though there aren’t any living ethnic groups in India associated with the jars, which means there is important to maintain the cultural heritage,” Mr Skopal said.
“The longer we take to find them, the greater chance that they will be destroyed, as more crops are planted in these areas and the forests are cut down.”
The researchers worked with local communities on the ground to uncover potential jar sites, often through areas of mountainous jungle that were difficult to navigate.
“Once the sites have been recorded, it becomes easier for the government to work with the local communities to protect and maintain them so they are not being destroyed,” Mr Skopal said.
The research was led by Tilok Thakuria, from North Eastern Hill University and Uttam Bathari, from Gauhati University.
The first fossil of a daytime active owl found at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau
An amazingly well-preserved fossil skeleton of an extinct owl that lived more than six million years ago has been unearthed in China. The fossil was discovered nearly 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) up, in the Linxia Basin of China’s Gansu province, at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Fossil skeleton of the daytime active owl Miosurnia diurna from China (below) with an expanded view of the skull (top left). The eye bones or scleral ossicles are false-coloured blue and set in comparison with an intact ring in the skull of a pygmy owl Glaucidium (top right).
Detailed analysis of the skeleton’s fossilised eye bones by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveals that, unlike most modern owls, this species was active in the daytime, not the night.
The fossil comprises nearly the entire skeleton from the tip of the skull through the wings and legs to the tail bone, along with body parts that are rarely seen as fossils.
These include the bones of the tongue apparatus called the hyoid, the trachea, the kneecap, tendons for wing and leg muscles, and even the remnants of the last meal of a small mammal.
‘It is the amazing preservation of the bones of the eye in this fossil skull that allows us to see that this owl preferred the day and not the night,’ said Dr. LI, first author of the study.
Reconstruction of the extinct owl Miosurnia diurna perched in a tree with its last meal of a small rodent, overlooking extinct three-toed horses and rhinos with the rising Tibetan Plateau on the horizon.
The researchers named the species Miosurnia diurna in reference to its close living relative, the diurnal Northern Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula).
The features of the skull and skeleton, including a large bump on part of the cheekbone just behind the eye, show that Miosurnia is a part of the global owl group Surniini.
Their research shows that the Surniini, which includes Miosurnia, the Northern Hawk Owl, and pygmy owls, rejected the night millions of years ago.
This extinct species is the first record of an ancient owl being ‘diurnal’, or active during the day. Scleral ossicles are small bones that form a ring around the pupil and iris in the outer region of the eye. Nocturnal animals require overall larger eyes and bigger pupils to see in low-light conditions, but diurnal animals have smaller eyes and pupils.
In the Miosurnia diurna fossil, the soft parts of the eye had decayed long ago, leaving the small trapezoidal scleral ossicles randomly collapsed into the owl’s eye socket.
The palaeontologists, therefore, had to measure these individual small bones and do some basic geometry to rebuild the size and shape of the ring around the eye.
‘It was a bit like playing with Lego blocks, just digitally,’ said Dr. Stidham, describing how the 16 little similar bones overlap each other to form a ring around the iris and pupil.
He said that putting them back together correctly allowed the scientists to determine the overall diameter of the ring and the opening for light in the middle.
The IVPP scientists then compared the fossil owl’s scleral ossicles with the eyes of 55 species of reptiles and more than 360 species of birds including many owls.
Looking at the size and shape of the fossil’s eye and its relatively smaller opening for light, the scientists determined that it most resembles the eyes of living owls in the Surniini group. Furthermore, they studied behavioural data from over 360 species across a diversity of birds to determine which were likely nocturnal or diurnal.
Their results show that the ancestor of all living owls was almost certainly nocturnal, but the ancestor of the Surniini group was instead diurnal.
‘This fossil skeleton turns what we thought we knew about the evolution of owls on its head,’ said Dr. LI.
Dr. Stidham adds that Miosurnia diurnia is the first record of an evolutionary process spanning millions of years and stretching across the globe whereby owls evolved to ‘reject the night for some fun in the sun.’
Palaeolithic People in Mongolia May Have Consumed Giant Camel
A species of giant two-humped camel, Camelus knoblochi, is known to have lived for approximately a quarter of a million years in Central Asia. A new study in Frontiers in Earth Science shows that C. knoblochi’s last refuge was in Mongolia until approximately 27,000 years ago.
In Mongolia, the last of the species coexisted with anatomically modern humans and maybe the extinct Neanderthals or Denisovans. While the main cause of C. knoblochi’s extinction seems to have been climate change, hunting by archaic humans may also have played a role.
“Here we show that the extinct camel, Camelus knoblochi, persisted in Mongolia until climatic and environmental changes nudged it into extinction about 27,000 years ago,” said Dr. John W Olsen, Regents’ professor emeritus at the School of Anthropology of the University of Arizona, Tucson, US.
Paradoxically, today, southwestern Mongolia hosts one of the last two wild populations of the critically endangered wild Bactrian camel, C. ferus.
The new results suggest that C. knoblochi coexisted with C. ferus during the late Pleistocene in Mongolia, so that between-species competition may have been the third cause of C. knoblochi’s extinction. Standing nearly three meters tall and weighing more than a ton, C. knoblochi would have dwarfed C. ferus.
The precise taxonomic relationships between these two species, other extinct Camelus, and the ancient Paracamelus aren’t yet resolved.
Olsen said, “C. knoblochi fossil remains from Tsagaan Agui Cave [in the Gobi Altai Mountains of southwestern Mongolia], which also contains a rich, stratified sequence of human Paleolithic cultural material, suggest that archaic people coexisted and interacted there with C. knoblochi and elsewhere, contemporaneously, with the wild Bactrian camel.”
Steppe specialists are driven into extinction by desertification
The new study describes five C. knoblochi leg and foot bones found in Tsagaan Agui Cave in 2021, and one from Tugrug Shireet in today’s Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia. They were found in association with bones of wolves, cave hyenas, rhinoceroses, horses, wild donkeys, ibexes, wild sheep, and Mongolian gazelles. This assemblage indicates that C. knoblochi lived in montane and lowland steppe environments, less dry habitats than those of its modern relatives.
The authors conclude that C. knoblochi finally went extinct primarily because it was less tolerant of desertification than today’s camels, C. ferus, the domestic Bactrian camel C. bactrianus, and the domestic Arabian camel C. dromedarius.
In the late Pleistocene, much of Mongolia’s environment became drier and changed from steppe to dry steppe and finally desert.
“Apparently, C. knoblochi was poorly adapted to desert biomes, primarily because such landscapes could not support such large animals, but perhaps there were other reasons as well, related to the availability of fresh water and the ability of camels to store water within the body, poorly adapted mechanisms of thermoregulation, and competition from other members of the faunal community occupying the same trophic niche,” wrote the authors.
Towards the end, the last of the species may have lingered, at least seasonally, in the milder forest-steppe—grassland interspersed with woodland—further north in neighbouring Siberia. But this habitat probably wasn’t ideal either, which could have sounded the death knell for C. knoblochi. The world would not see giant camels again.
Preyed upon or scavenged by humans
What were the relations between archaic humans and C. knoblochi?
Corresponding author Dr. Arina M Khatsenovich, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk, Russia, said, “A C. knoblochi metacarpal bone from Tsagaan Agui Cave, dated to between 59,000 and 44,000 years ago, exhibits traces of both butchery by humans and hyenas gnawing on it. This suggests that C. knoblochi was a species that Late Pleistocene humans in Mongolia could hunt or scavenge.”
“We don’t yet have sufficient material evidence regarding the interaction between humans and C. ferus in the Late Pleistocene, but it likely did not differ from human relationships with C. knoblochi—as prey, but not a target for domestication.”
First author Dr. Alexey Klementiev, a paleobiologist with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch, said, “We conclude that C. knoblochi became extinct in Mongolia and in Asia, generally, by the end of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (roughly 27,000 years ago) as a result of climate changes that provoked degradation of the steppe ecosystem and intensified the process of aridification.”
A dozen stone weapons have been unearthed from a site dating back between 3,800 to 4,200 years in central China’s Hunan Province, the provincial cultural relics and archaeology research institute said.
An undated photo shows a large-scale platform foundation found at the Sunjiagang site in Lixian County, central China’s Hunan Province.
The Sunjiagang site, located northwest of Dongting Lake Plain, dates back to the late Neolithic Age to the early Xia Dynasty (around 2070-1600 BC).
The stone weapons found at the Sunjiagang site in Lixian County include spears and arrows.
The relics indicate that the relationship between different communities in the area might have been relatively tense, and violent conflicts or wars occurred, said Zhao Yafeng, associate researcher with the institute.
Recent archaeological excavations also revealed a new form of residence at the Sunjiagang site, which is a simpler form of residential architecture.
Zhao said the archaeological excavation and research at the site has greatly enriched the understanding of the prehistoric culture of the Liyang Plain and Dongting Lake area and provided new archaeological data for understanding the social life in the whole Dongting Lake area from the late Neolithic Age to the early Xia Dynasty.
Archaeologists believe they found the oldest Hebrew text in Israel – including the name of God
Archaeologist Dr. Scott Stripling and a team of international scholars held a press conference on Thursday in Houston, Texas, unveiling what he claims is the earliest proto-alphabetic Hebrew text — including the name of God, “YHWH” — ever discovered in ancient Israel. It was found at Mount Ebal, known from Deuteronomy 11:29 as a place of curses.
If the Late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BCE) date is verified, this tiny, 2-centimeter x 2 centimeter folded-lead “curse tablet” may be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever. It would be the first attested use of the name of God in the Land of Israel and would set the clock back on proven Israelite literacy by several centuries — showing that the Israelites were literate when they entered the Holy Land, and therefore could have written the Bible as some of the events it documents took place.
“This is a text you find only every 1,000 years,” Haifa University Prof. Gershon Galil told The Times of Israel on Thursday. Galil helped decipher the hidden internal text of the folded lead tablet based on high-tech scans carried out in Prague at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Based on epigraphical analysis of the scans and lead analysis of the artifact, Stripling and his team date the curse tablet (or defixio) to the late Bronze Age, before or around 1200 BCE. If this dating is verified, it would make the text centuries older than the previous recordholder for oldest Hebrew text in Israel and 500 years older than the previously attested use of the tetragrammaton YHWH, according to Galil. Writing in a similar alphabet was discovered in the Sinai Peninsula dating to the beginning of the 16th century BCE.
However, the researchers have not yet published the find in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Likewise, they are not yet releasing clear images and scans of the inscription for other academics to weigh in on.
Also challenging the secure dating of the object is the fact that the tablet was not discovered during a carefully excavated stratified context. Rather, it was found during a 2019 re-examination of earth from a dump pile formed during 1980s excavations at Mount Ebal that were held under Prof. Adam Zertal. The earth had been dry-sifted then, and in 2019 Stripling’s team resifted it using a wet sifting technique that was developed at the Temple Mount Sifting Project, where Stripling once worked. Stripling current heads ongoing excavations at biblical Shiloh.
Archaeologists approached by The Times of Israel were unwilling to comment on the record until they viewed the hopefully forthcoming academic paper and scans.
“The fact that they are publishing it in the news before being published scientifically is a bit off,” said one established academic. Another cautioned that since he hasn’t been able to view the inscription himself, it was impossible to know whether the claims were factual or a case of “overdeveloped imagination.”
However, both skeptics said that “everything is possible” and that “it may be valid,” even though the images were not yet being made available. While it is irregular to promote an unpublished work in the lay press before an academic journal, Galil noted that the team felt obligated to share news of the tablet’s existence and their initial findings because of its history-changing potential.
Dr. Scott Stripling, head of the current excavation at biblical Shiloh, exhibits a find. May 22, 2017.
A curse tablet from the mount of curses
The curse tablet was discovered in earth originally taken from a cultic site at Mount Ebal, near biblical Shechem and today’s Nablus. Mount Ebal appears in Deuteronomy 11:29 as a place of “curses” and is revered by some Christians and Jews as the place where the biblical Joshua built an altar as commanded in Deuteronomy 27. It is described in Joshua 8:31 as “an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lifted up any iron.”
The site known is known by locals as “Al-Burnat,” or “top hat” in Arabic, and is regarded by archaeologists as an exceedingly rare and significant illustration of early Israelite settlement. It is the only one of its type in the area. A consensus of archaeologists date the clearly cultic site to the early Iron Age, somewhere around the 11th century BCE, or when the Israelites evidently began to settle the land of Canaan. Other archaeologists push that date back to the 12th century or Late Bronze Age.
‘Joshua’s Altar’ at the Mount Ebal archaeological site, February 15, 2021.
“This is an important site, belonging to the wave of settlement in the highlands in the early phase of the Iron Age,” said Prof. Israel Finkelstein, one of the world’s leading researchers on Iron Age settlement in the region. Finkelstein spoke with The Times of Israel in February 2021 when Mount Ebal was in the news after allegations were made that it was being destroyed by local Arab towns in the course of construction of a road.
“As far as I can judge, it dates to the 11th century BCE. As such, it can be understood as representing the groups which established the kingdom of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) in the 10th century BCE. In other words, it is an early Israelite site,” he told The Times of Israel.
The late University of Haifa professor Zertal excavated the site in the 1980s, including a large rectangular altar that was apparently constructed over an earlier round altar. Stripling said the tablet came from earth originally excavated from this round altar.
Artist’s rendering of the Mt. Ebal archaeological site and the dump piles sifted by Dr. Scott Stripling and his team in 2019.
“As soon as I saw it [the tablet], I knew what it was because these curse tablets are known. My heart almost jumped out of my chest,” said Stripling.
In addition to the fact of an early — if not the earliest — Hebrew inscription found in the Land of Israel, Galil told The Times of Israel that this find sets to rest the ongoing academic discussion of whether the Israelites were literate.
“We know that from the moment they came to Israel, the Israelites knew how to write, including the name of God, clearly,” said Galil. “It’s not too surprising; people already knew how to write in other places,” he added.
Arguably the earliest written evidence of the name of God, YHWH, according to epigrapher Haifa University Prof. Gershon Galil.
The scans were read by Galil and Pieter Gert van der Veen of Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. Speaking with The Times of Israel, Stripling said the reading includes the words “arur” (cursed) and “YHWH” (including the three main letters of the tetragrammaton).
“We recovered 40 letters, 40 on the inside and outside of the tablet. And they were all in this proto-alphabetic script which dates to the Late Bronze Age,” said Stripling.
Galil told The Times of Israel that the text is largely written in an archaic proto-Canaanite script, with some letters coming from hieroglyphs. The latest date of the epigraphic analysis would put it circa the 12th century, while some elements are dated to even earlier.
The majority Hebrew-language text, he posited, was written by Israelites as an internal legal document, a form of social contract, warning the person under contract what would happen if he did not fulfill his obligations.
An English translation of Prof. Gershon Galil’s reading of the arguably 13th century BCE lead curse tablet found on Mt. Ebal.
According to the researchers, it reads: “Cursed, cursed, cursed – cursed by the God YHW./ You will die cursed./ Cursed you will surely die./ Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed.”
Galil said the structure is a parallel chiastic, which is found elsewhere in the Bible, as well as in other Near Eastern texts of the period and even earlier. But until now, researchers have held that the Bible was only written down — if not composed — hundreds of years after the posited dating of this text.
“Now we see that someone could write a chiastic” in the 12th century BCE. No longer should the conversation be about whether the Israelites were literate during the time of King David, he said.
“The person who wrote this text had the ability to write every text in the Bible,” Galil stated.
Discovery of “unique” burial containing 140 pieces of amber jewellery
An archaeologist at the burial site.
A team of archaeologists from Petrozavodsk State University in Russia have unearthed the burial site of a Copper Age “amber man” who was painted with ocher upon his death and laid to rest with more than 100 pieces of jewellery.
The expedition took place on the western shore of Lake Onega, the second-largest lake in Europe, where archaeologist Alexander Zhulnikov led a team of students on the dig, according to a press release issued by the university.
Amber buttons were discovered at the burial site.
The students discovered what a research paper describes as a “unique burial” surrounded by amber jewellery and flint objects.
Inside the narrow chamber, the man was painted with ocher, a red pigment often used to mark a grave so it wouldn’t be disturbed, and surrounded by about 140 pieces of amber jewellery from the Baltic region.
The man buried in the chamber was almost certainly of high social standing and may have been a trader himself from the Eastern Baltic States.
The objects included pendants, discs, and amber buttons “arranged in rows face down” and sewn onto a covering made of leather and placed over the body.
Another two tiers of amber buttons were found along the edges of the small grave.
Amber buttons were discovered at the burial site.
The flint chips found are likely from tools placed over the body and “are clearly so-called votive items—offerings apparently symbolizing whole knives and arrowheads,” researchers said in their paper.
The unique aspect of this particular burial, they said, is that it is an individual grave.
Other burials dating to the Mesolithic era and found in the forest belt of Europe are large cemeteries.
Burials with such a large number of jewels were previously unheard of in this area of Karelia, nor have they been uncovered in nearby northwestern regions.
The burial site.
Flint deposits are also unknown in the region, indicating that ancient people must have obtained them through the exchange.
In a statement, Zhulnikov said the discovery “testifies to the strong ties of the ancient population of Karelia with the tribes that lived on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea” and to the “formation of the so-called ‘prestigious’ primitive economy” among those living in Northern Europe, where high-value objects like jewellery and tools helped create and maintain social hierarchies.
Archaeologists discover innovative 40,000-year-old culture in China
Archaeologists excavating the well-preserved surface at the Xiamabei site, northern China, showing stone tools, fossils, ochre and red pigments.
When did populations of Homo sapiens first arrive in China and what happened when they encountered the Denisovans or Neanderthals who lived there? A new study in Nature by an international team of researchers opens a window into hunter-gatherer lifestyles 40,000 years ago.
Archaeological excavations at the site of Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin of northern China have revealed the presence of innovative behaviours and unique toolkits.
The discovery of a new culture suggests processes of innovation and cultural diversification occurring in Eastern Asia during a period of genetic and cultural hybridization. Although previous studies have established that Homo sapiens arrived in northern Asia about 40,000 years ago, much about the lives and cultural adaptations of these early peoples, and their possible interactions with archaic groups, remains unknown.
In the search for answers, the Nihewan Basin in northern China, with a wealth of archaeological sites ranging in age from 2 million to 10,000 years ago, provides one of the best opportunities for understanding the evolution of cultural behaviour in northeastern Asia.
The article published in Nature describes a unique 40,000-year-old culture at the site of Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin. With the earliest known evidence of ochre processing in Eastern Asia and a set of distinct blade-like stone tools, Xiamabei contains cultural expressions and features that are unique or exceedingly rare in northeastern Asia.
Through the collaboration of an international team of scholars, analysis of the finds offers important new insights into cultural innovation during the expansion of Homo sapiens populations.
“Xiamabei stands apart from any other known archaeological site in China, as it possesses a novel set of cultural characteristics at an early date,” says Dr. Fa-Gang Wang of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, whose team first excavated the site.
Cultural adaptations at Xiamabei
“The ability of hominins to live in northern latitudes, with cold and highly seasonal environments, was likely facilitated by the evolution of culture in the form of economic, social and symbolic adaptations,” says Dr. Shixia Yang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, in Jena, Germany.
“The finds at Xiamabei are helping us to understand these adaptations and their potential role in human migration.”
Ochre pieces and stone processing equipment laying on a red-stained pigment patch.
One of the significant cultural features found at Xiamabei is the extensive use of ochre, as shown by artefacts used to process large quantities of pigment. The artefacts include two pieces of ochre with different mineral compositions and an elongated limestone slab with smoothed areas bearing ochre stains, all on a surface of red-stained sediment.
Analysis by researchers from the University of Bordeaux, led by Prof. Francesco d’Errico, indicates that different types of ochre were brought to Xiamabei and processed through pounding and abrasion to produce powders of different colours and consistency, the use of which stained the habitation floor. Ochre production at Xiamabei represents the earliest known example of this practice in Eastern Asia.
The stone tools at Xiamabei represent a novel cultural adaptation for northern China 40,000 years ago. Because little is known about stone tool industries in Eastern Asia until micro blades became the dominant technology about 29,000 years ago, the Xiamabei finds provide important insights into toolmaking industries during a key transition period.
The blade-like stone tools at Xiamabei were unique for the region, with the large majority of tools being miniaturized, more than half measuring less than 20 millimetres.
Seven of the stone tools showed clear evidence of hafting to a handle, and functional and residue analysis suggests tools were used for boring, hide scraping, whittling plant material and cutting soft animal matter.
The site inhabitants made hafted and multipurpose tools, demonstrative of a complex technical system for transforming raw materials not seen at older or slightly younger sites.
A complex history of innovation
The record emerging from Eastern Asia shows that a variety of adaptations were taking place as modern humans entered the region roughly 40,000 years ago. Although no hominin remains were found at Xiamabei, the presence of modern human fossils at the contemporary site of Tianyuandong and the slightly younger sites of Salkhit and Zhoukoudian Upper Cave suggests that the visitors to Xiamabei were Homo sapiens. A varied lithic technology and the presence of some innovations—such as hafted tools and ochre processing, but not other innovations, such as formal bone tools or ornaments—may reflect an early colonization attempt by modern humans. This colonization period may have included genetic and cultural exchanges with archaic groups, such as the Denisovans, before ultimately being replaced by later waves of Homo sapiens using microblade technologies.
Extraordinarily well-preserved bladelet showing microscopic evidence of a bone handle, plant fibres used for binding, and plant polish produced by whittling action.
Given the unique nature of Xiamabei, the authors of the new paper argue that the archaeological record does not fit with the idea of continuous cultural innovation, or of a fully formed set of adaptations that enabled early humans to expand out of Africa and around the world.
Instead, the authors argue that we should expect to find a mosaic of innovation patterns, with the spread of earlier innovations, the persistence of local traditions, and the local invention of new practices all taking place in a transitional phase.
“Our findings show that current evolutionary scenarios are too simple,” says Professor Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, “and that modern human, and our culture, emerged through repeated but differing episodes of genetic and social exchanges over large geographic areas, rather than as a single, rapid dispersal wave across Asia.”
Archaeology breakthrough as experts retrace human roots with 518 million year-old rocks
The new study is based on an analysis of 518 million-year-old rocks that contain the oldest collection of fossils that researchers have on record.
The researchers believe that Chengjian, a city in the mountainous Yunnan Province of China, is the origin of many of today’s species, including humans. This site is where complex organisms first developed, an event known as the ‘Cambrian Explosion’, a major time period in the history of the Earth.
The Cambrian explosion is the 13-25 million year-long period where all major animal species began to develop. The collection of fossils includes 250 different lifeforms that range from the first worms to primitive arthropods which led to shrimps, insects, spiders and scorpions.
The researchers, who published their findings in Nature Communications, have also discovered some of the earliest vertebrates, including the ancestors of modern fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Senior author Dr Xiaoya Ma, of Exeter University, said: “The Cambrian Explosion is now universally accepted as a genuine rapid evolutionary event.
“But the causal factors have been long debated – with hypotheses on environmental, genetic or ecological triggers.”
Archaeology breakthrough as expert retrace human roots with 518-million-year-old rocks.
The rocks contain the oldest collection of fossils that researchers have on record.
At the time, the area was a vast wetland feeding the mouth of a river – ideal for organisms to thrive.
Dr Ma said: “The discovery of a deltaic environment shed new light on understanding the possible causal factors for the flourishing of these Cambrian bilaterian animal-dominated marine communities and their exceptional soft-tissue preservation.
“The unstable environmental stressors might also contribute to the adaptive radiation of these early animals.”
Some key prehistoric discoveries
Only true animals are ‘bilaterian’ – with both a front and back, two symmetrical sides and openings at either end connected by a gut.
An analysis of ancient sediment samples identified evidence of marine currents. The area was a shallow, nutrient-rich delta affected by storm-floods – shedding fresh light on evolution.
Co-lead author Dr Farid Saleh, of Yunnan University, said: “We can see from the association of numerous sedimentary flows the environment hosting the Chengjiang Biota was complex.
The Cambrian explosion is the 13-25 million year-long period where all major animal species began.
“It was certainly shallower than what has been previously suggested in the literature for similar animal communities.”
The era was a key period when the diversity of life began to resemble that of today. Most organisms were simple until then – composed of individual cells occasionally assembled into colonies.
Co-lead author Dr Changshi Qi, also from Yunnan, said: “Our research shows that the Chengjiang Biota mainly lived in a well-oxygenated shallow-water deltaic environment.
The collection of fossils includes 250 different lifeforms
“Storm floods transported these organisms down to the adjacent deep oxygen-deficient settings, leading to the exceptional preservation we see today.”
The study also confirms a long-held theory that a large spike in oxygen triggered the burst.
Co-author Professor Luis Buatois, of Saskatchewan University in Canada, said: “The Chengjiang Biota – as is the case of similar faunas described elsewhere – is preserved in fine-grained deposits.
“Our understanding of how these muddy sediments were deposited has changed dramatically during the last 15 years.
“Application of this recently acquired knowledge to the study of fossiliferous deposits of exceptional preservation will change dramatically our understanding of how and where these sediments accumulated.”
