Paleontology & Evolution

385-Million-Year-Old Amber Found in China Rewrites Plant Evolution Timeline

For decades, the oldest known amber on record dated to around 320 million years ago, from the Carboniferous period. Now, a team of paleontologists working in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China has pushed that record back by a staggering 65 million years — and in doing so, has upended a fundamental assumption about when plants first evolved the ability to produce resin.

• Researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology analysed about 10 kilograms of coal collected from the Hujiersite Formation near Hoxtolgay in Xinjiang. Using ultraviolet light, they located tiny clusters of amber embedded within the coal and extracted 241 pieces, most measuring just 0.1 to 0.5 millimetres across — barely visible to the naked eye.
• The amber dates to the Middle Devonian period, around 385 million years ago, a time when seed plants — the group that includes conifers, flowering plants, and modern trees — had not yet evolved. This means the resin was produced by a much earlier type of plant, likely a non-seed vascular plant like a primitive fern or lycopsid, challenging the traditional view that resin production was a trait unique to seed plants.
• Chemical analysis confirmed the fragments are genuine amber, composed of complex terpenoid compounds — the same class of organic molecules found in modern plant resins. The discovery extends the confirmed fossil record of amber by 65 million years and opens a new window into the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems during the Devonian, a period often called the "Age of Fishes" when life was just beginning to colonise the land in earnest.

Amber is fossilised tree resin, the sticky substance that plants secrete to seal wounds, repel pests, and protect against microbial infections. Because it can preserve organisms in microscopic detail — from pollen grains to insects to feathers — amber provides an extraordinary window into ancient ecosystems. But until now, the oldest known amber dated to the Carboniferous, around 320 million years ago, when seed plants were already well established.

The new discovery, published in Science Advances, pushes that timeline back by 65 million years to the Middle Devonian. The Hujiersite Formation, where the amber was found, is a geological deposit that preserves an ancient landscape of wetlands, lakes, and primitive forests. The 241 amber fragments recovered from the coal seam are tiny — most less than half a millimetre across — but their chemical signatures are unmistakable. Using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the team confirmed the presence of diterpenoid compounds, the hallmark of genuine plant resin.

The timing of the discovery is significant. The Middle Devonian was a period of explosive plant evolution. Forests were spreading across the continents for the first time, and plants were developing increasingly sophisticated chemical defences. The amber predates the earliest known seed plants by roughly 20 million years, which means that resin production evolved independently in non-seed plants long before seeds appeared. This rewrites the evolutionary narrative: resin was not a seed-plant innovation but a much older adaptation that seed plants later inherited and refined.

The discovery also raises tantalising questions about what else might be preserved in Devonian amber. The tiny fragments found so far are too small to contain visible fossils, but the team believes that larger pieces of the same age may exist in the Hujiersite Formation, potentially preserving microscopic organisms from the Devonian — a period when terrestrial life was still in its infancy.