Paleo Peach Pits

Domesticated peaches

Scientists have discovered fossilized peach pits in southwest China. The fossil endosperms date to more than 2.5 million years ago ― ancient pits resembling pits from today's domesticated peaches.

Prehistoric ecological systems are imagined and hypothesized from terrestrial and aquatic plant fossils by paleobotanists. From the scientific disciplines of paleobotany and paleobiology, it's possible to explore the evolutionary history and interconnectedness of living organisms.

Earth is a vast cemetery where the rocks are tombstones on which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs.
― Louis Agassiz

Macrofossils, microfossils, trace fossils, and DNA and RNA samples are studied for clues and connections to present day organisms.

Fossilized peach pit
source: Tao Su

This finding suggests that peaches developed through natural selection long before homo sapiens domesticated peaches.

The domestication of the peach likely occurred some time after homo sapiens appeared some 200,000 years ago.

It's plausible that extinct hominid species like homo erectus, whose earliest fossil record dates back to about 1.9 million years ago, might have eaten peaches similar to the ones we eat today.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.
― Alice Walker, from Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology

REFERENCES

• Eat a paleo peach: First fossil peaches discovered in southwest China, Science Daily, 1 December 2015.
• Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, by Barbara Smith, et. al., Rutgers University Press 2000.
• Paleobotany, Wikipedia.
• World's Oldest Fossil Peaches Found In China, by Janet Fang, 3 December 2015.

First Flower

Intact specimen of
the fossil montsechia

Photo by
Bernard Gomez

Paleobotanists have identified an extremely early aquatic flowering plant montsechia vidalii in its fossilized form.

The 125 to 130 million-year-old fossil provides a record of one of earliest known flowering plants on Earth ― a mythical first flower present during the age of dinosaurs.

"A 'first flower' is technically a myth, like the 'first human,'"
― David Dilcher, Paleobotanist

Montsechia has the rudimentary characteristics of a flowering plant, also known as an angiosperm.

"Montsechia possesses no obvious ‘flower parts,’ such as petals or nectar-producing structures for attracting insects, and lived out its entire life cycle under water. The fruit contains a single seed which is borne upside down."
― David Dilcher

Montsechia produced seeds within a carpal, the female reproductive organ of a flower. Carpals are a component of the gynoecium which is the term that describes the parts of a flowing plant that develop into the fruit and seeds. Gynoecium is a composite word from the Greek words gyne, meaning woman, and oikous, meaning house.

"There’s still much to be discovered about how a few early species of seed-bearing plants eventually gave rise to the enormous, and beautiful, variety of flowers that now populate nearly every environment on Earth."
― David Dilcher

REFERENCES

• Fossilised remains of world’s oldest flower discovered in Spain, Helen Thomson, The Guardian, 17 August 2015.
• IU paleobotanist identifies what could be the mythical 'first flower', Indiana University Bloomington Newsroom, 17 August 2015.
• Montsechia vidalii: Paleontologists Identify One of Earliest Flowering Plants, Sci-News.com, 18 August 2015.
• Mythical First Flower Found, Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, 17 August 2015.