Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest amber in China, a find that pushes back the known history of this ancient plant resin by tens of millions of years. The discovery, described in a new study published in Science Advances, dates the amber to roughly 385 million years ago, during the Middle Devonian period.
The amber was found in the Hujiersite Formation in Xinjiang, in northwest China. Before this discovery, the oldest confirmed amber came from the Late Carboniferous period, about 320 million years ago. The new find pushes that timeline back by about 65 million years.
Researchers confirm the world’s oldest amber found in China
Cihang Luo, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led the study. Luo and colleagues found the amber pieces buried in a thin coal seam, alongside fossils of ancient plants such as lycopsids and progymnosperms.
The amber pieces are tiny. Most measure less than half a millimeter across (0.02 inches), though the largest piece found was about 1.5 millimeters wide (0.06 inches).
Despite their small size, the pieces show a range of colors, from light yellow to dark brown. Under ultraviolet light, the amber glows a bright blue, standing out clearly against the dark coal around it.
Chemical tests confirm ancient resin’s conifer-like origins
To confirm the material was true amber, researchers ran chemical tests using infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The results matched chemical signatures found in resin made by conifers, a group of trees that includes pines.
This suggests the ancient plants behind the resin had already developed complex biological tools for making terpenoids, the compounds found in tree resin.
Seed plants, the group that includes conifers, had not yet evolved during the Middle Devonian. That means the resin likely came from an earlier kind of plant.
Researchers pointed to two possible sources: progymnosperms or tree-like lycopsids, both of which grew in the region at the time. Fossils of these plants turned up in the same rock layers as the amber.
Ancient resin likely protected Devonian plants from fire, disease
Researchers explained that the resin likely helped these ancient plants survive threats such as wildfires and fungal infections.
Wildfires were common during this period, and some plants had already developed defenses against disease. The resin likely worked much like a natural bandage, sealing wounds and keeping out harmful organisms.
The discovery offers a rare window into how early plants adapted and survived during a critical stretch of evolution, when life was just beginning to spread widely across land.
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