Danish researchers are about to rewrite the history of the earth, as they uncover traces of multi-cellular life from 2.1 billion years ago. Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark (among others) say they have found signs of multi-celled organisms that are far older than any discovered before.
Up until now, it was thought that such creatures only appeared on earth around 500 million years ago. The new research, published this week in Nature magazine, has however questioned previous scientific theorists who concluded only single-cell, ocean-dwelling bacteria were found at such early times.
“It’s just fantastic. We have yet another piece of the puzzle in understanding the development of life on earth and how things developed from single-celled life to the development of the animals and humans that we know today,” said Emma Hammarlund of the University of Southern Denmark in a report by Politiken.
Hammarlund and other researchers studied 12cm-long fossils found in a quarry in Gabon. It is thought that they were once composed of soft organic material and lived on the ocean floor.
“We can see that there is a collection of cells that in some way or other have communicated and allocated tasks, thus showing signs of multi-cellular activity. It’s amazing to see such large fossils from such an early period,” said Hammarlund.