Peach seeds more than two million years old are the same today

The team of scientists found that peach-tree fossils dating back over 2.5 million years in southwestern China, show that this fruit was born before humans appeared in the area.

Found 2 million-year-old peach kernel fossils in China

Although relatively flat, ancient peach seeds look quite like modern trees , with oval shapes and deep grooves and wrinkles. However, in terms of size, ancient peach seeds are smaller than today's peach seeds, with a diameter of nearly 5 cm.

"You just need to imagine the smallest peach sold on the market today, the shape of the ancient peach looks similar. The fresh pink flesh around it can be eaten. It must taste very good." , Live Science quoted Peter Wilf, an ancient botanical professor at the University of Pennsylvania (PSU), USA.

In 2010, Wilf's colleague Tao Su, associate professor from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Yunnan Province, China, collected 8 peach tree fossils revealed during the construction of a new road near the station. Buses in Kunming, the capital of the province.

2.5 million year old peach seeds found in China.(Photo: Tao Su).

Peach seed fossils were found in the late Pliocene century rock layers, the geological period took place 2.6 - 5.3 million years ago. The peach seeds are like today's seeds to the extent that Su and colleagues have to carry out a series of tests to confirm they are not left behind by construction workers.

Through sweeping fossils in PSU, Wilf and Su discovered that seeds inside the seeds were replaced by iron metal and into granules with crystallization phenomenon - a trace of long age. The team also sought to determine the age of peach granules by considering the carbon isotope 14 contained within. This is a common way to measure the age of organic matter. The results show that fossil dates are beyond the measuring limit of 50,000 years.

Dao is said to be a native tree of China . Historical sources validate plant species grown in China for centuries. Shi-Jing, recruiting the oldest collection of Chinese poems including works from the 11th century to the 7th century BC, once mentioned peach trees. Remnants of peach digging also exist in archaeological areas in Zhejiang Province, where seeds have been excavated for 8,000 years in the 1970s.

In the study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports on November 26, scientists believe that the tree is evolving through natural selection and in the process of human cultivation.

Peach trees can be an attractive source of fruit for primate, including human ancestors such as Homo erectus and Homo sapiens to China in the Pleistocene. The earliest digging species can help plants grow by spreading seeds through faeces.

"Peach trees are witnesses to the growth of people in China. It is before humans. Through history, we adapt to plants and it also adapts to us , " Wilf said.