Scientists have reported the discovery of the oldest ancestors of vertebrates in China

Paleontologists have discovered fossils in southwestern China that could rewrite the history of the origin of complex animal life on Earth. The finds date from 554 to 539 million years old and belong to the late Ediacaran, preceding the famous Cambrian explosion. This was reported on April 6 in the journal Science Daily.

"Our discovery closes a major gap in the earliest stages of animal diversification. For the first time, we are proving that many complex animals, which were previously considered exclusively Cambrian, existed as early as the Ediacaran period, which means that they arose much earlier than fossil evidence," said Gaorong Li, lead author of the study, a doctor from Oxford University.

A collection of more than 700 specimens was recovered from the Jiangchuan Biota site in Yunnan Province. Among the finds are the supposed oldest relatives of deuterostomia: the animal supertype to which vertebrates belong, including fish and humans. Their presence in the Ediacaran strata is being recorded for the first time.

Early relatives of starfish and acorn worms, representatives of the ambulacraria group, have also been found. These creatures had a U-shaped body, were attached to the seabed by a stalk and, apparently, captured food with the help of tentacles. Bilaterally symmetrical worm-like animals with a complex structure of the oral apparatus have also been preserved, as well as isolated samples of suspected ctenophores.

According to study co—author Dr. Frankie Dunn of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the discovery of ambulacrariae in the Ediacaran sediments indirectly means that chordates — animals with a spine - also existed during that period.

A special role in the discovery was played by the type of preservation: fossils are imprinted in the form of carbon films, which is usually typical for Cambrian Burgess-Shale type localities in Canada. This method of conservation allows you to see the smallest details of the structure — digestive organs, nutrition structures and adaptations for movement.

According to Associate Professor Ross Anderson, the absence of similar animals at other Ediacaran sites is most likely due not to their biological absence, but to conservation features.

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On March 19, Arkeonews magazine reported the discovery of a 5.5 thousand-year-old settlement on the Bolivian island of Isla del Sol. According to the researchers, the first inhabitants appeared on Lake Titicaca between 3635 and 3381 BC. It was also clarified that the people who lived in this area had the ability to build boats and cross open water.

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