The Chengjiang Fossil Group in Yunnan, the earliest life that appeared on Earth 530 million years ago, is the distant ancestor of human beings as living things
In 2003, the first prize of the National Natural Science Award was awarded to three scientists in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the study of paleontological fossil communities in Chengjiang, Yunnan: Professor Hou Xianguang of Yunnan University, Chen Junyuan, Researcher of Nanjing Institute of Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Professor Shu Degan of Northwest University. The three paleontologists found that the Chengjiang fossil group recorded a vivid picture of the Cambrian explosion of life 530 million years ago, revealing the secret of the origin of life on Earth, and their research has greatly advanced the study of human origin since Darwin, and pushed the world's paleontological research into a new and higher stage. As a result, in October 2012, the Chengjiang fossil group was included in the World Natural Heritage List, and Shu Degan (2011) and Chen Junyuan (2013) were also elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Hou Xianguang
The Chengjiang fossil group was discovered by Hou Xianguang and attracted widespread attention from the academic circles of all China and the world. In 1984, Hou Xianguang worked at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his supervisor when he was studying for a master's degree at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology, Zhang Wentang, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, told him that as early as 1907 and 1910, French scholars had conducted geological paleontological surveys in the Chengjiang area, and the "Memorandum on the Geological Conditions of Eastern Yunnan" left behind recorded the process of their discovery of fossils. In 1940, Chinese geologist He Chunsun was ordered to investigate geological and mineral resources, and he wrote the Geological Report of the Central Geological Survey, in which the article "Geology of Dongshan Phosphate Rock in Chengjiang County, Yunnan" recorded that the section of The Tianshan Mountain in Chengjiang, Yunnan "contains a small class of double-petaled shell arthropods from top to bottom, which was identified as Bradoriasp (high muscle worm or translated as golden arm worm) by Yang Zunyi of the Department of Geology of Sun Yat-sen University. Hou Xianguang personally came to the Chengjiang Hat Tianshan Mountain and persistently searched for the fossils recorded by He Chunsun. After a period of arduous fieldwork, he found the first Narrow fossil and wrote a research paper for publication, which attracted great attention from the academic community at home and abroad.
Hou Xianguang is remarkable, his discovery of the Chengjiang fossil group, known as "one of the most amazing discoveries of the twentieth century", was the first person to carry out academic research on the origin of life in Chengjiang, Yunnan in the 1980s and achieved research results. In recognition of Hou's outstanding contributions to the scientific significance of the Cambrian explosion and innovative research on the theory of early life evolution, he was elected vice president of the International Paleontological Society in 2006.
Shudgan
Shu Degan and Chen Junyuan are also remarkable, they then focused on the study of the Chengjiang fossil group for a long time, and achieved a number of more original research results, which were highly valued by the international academic community, thus laying the foundation for the status of Chengjiang in Yunnan as the "origin of life" on the earth, and letting the world know that the "Hat Tianshan" located in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province, which is not amazing, was originally a treasure mountain that all mankind should come to "seek roots and ask ancestors" and worship.
Chen Junyuan
However, the Chengjiang fossil group in Yunnan, which caused a sensation in the international academic community after 1984, may have caused a "sensation" long ago. Because He Chunsun had previously worked in Chengjiang, when he was a professor at Sun Yat-sen University, because during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Sun Yat-sen University moved west to Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province from 1939 to 1940. As Yang Zunyi (who later worked at China University of Geosciences) said in a letter in 1991: "At that time, the Geology Department of Sun Yat-sen University was located in Donglongtan Village, Chengjiang County, Yunnan, close to the Hat Tianshan Mountain, when he took his classmates to practice near the station, he often found such fossils. (See Jiang Zhiwen's article "The Latest Study of High Muscle Worms in the Early Cambrian Period of China", Journal of Paleontology, No. 4, 2003) Yang Zunyi not only found these paleontological fossils, but also used the international academic language of "Bradoriasp", which is an internationally accepted academic language, but did not study in depth from the perspective of paleontology in time, and missed the opportunity to obtain academic research results and have a major impact.
Yang Zunyi is the founder of paleontological stratigraphy education in China
Of course, the contributions of Yang Zunyi and He Chunsun are still very important! Just think, if it were not for Yang Zunyi and He Chunsun's knowledge of the chengjiang hat tianshan paleontological fossils and the importance of this cognition, He Chunsun would not have written it into a geological and mineral report, and posterity would not have been able to find this clue in the research data of the predecessors, and the Chengjiang hat tianshan mountain as a treasure of the paleontological fossil group would not know when it would be discovered; and now the "Yunnan worm" in the Chengjiang fossil group is the earliest chordate (the prototype of vertebrates), "Kunming fish" and "Haikou fish" on the earth. As the earliest vertebrates, it cannot be the pride of the Chinese as the ancestors of human beings who later differentiated from the vertebrates, as the only well-preserved natural historical heritage.
Yunnan worm
What is more worth pondering should be that if China's high-quality higher education resources can be evenly distributed, and there has always been a Sun Yat-sen University next to the Chengjiang Hat Tianshan Mountain (if it were not for the war to relocate the university to a place like Chengjiang and move away when the war was slightly better), then can we believe that Yang Zunyi and his colleagues would have "personally" gone to sensationalize the world, rather than waiting for future generations to stumble upon such an opportunity forty or fifty years later? Perhaps Hou Xianguang's "discovery" and the outstanding research work of other scholars and experts are reminding today's decision-makers that it is time to promote the rational and relatively balanced layout of China's higher education resources. Places like Chengjiang County, despite having a variety of unique resources, cannot be properly developed because of the lack of talents, especially the lack of high-level talents, which is a problem that urgently needs to be paid attention to and solved.
For Sun Yat-sen University, perhaps there should also be some reflection: the rise of the Chengjiang fossil group, a major event that has sensationalized the world's academic circles, seems to have nothing to do with Sun Yat-sen University, which has a direct relationship with the Chengjiang fossil group. Of course, this does not matter, there are still many things that Sun Yat-sen University can do today. For example, is it possible to consider restoring and rebuilding the Chengjiang Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, in order to repay the kindness of President Xu Chongqing when Sun Yat-sen University moved out of Chengjiang in 1940 that the people of Chengjiang, who were in extreme difficulty, "never quit the strings and sing and swim in peace" ("Farewell to the People of Chengjiang"), and to support and help Chengjiang County, which is the "intersection of suffering and life and death" (a description of the relationship between Sun Yat-sen University and Chengjiang County when a leader of Sun Yat-sen University visited Chengjiang County again in 2009), Also for the sake of Sun Yat-sen University itself to find new development opportunities?
For Chengjiang County, the discovery of the Chengjiang fossil group is a gift from nature to the Chengjiang people, not only to protect and care for it with the support of all aspects of society, but also to take it as the basis and advantageous condition for promoting economic and social development. For example, it is necessary to introduce high-quality scientific research resources, higher education resources, cultural industry development resources and so on at home and abroad. Just imagine, many shells, hairs and even soft parts such as epidermis and internal organs in the Chengjiang fossil group have been well preserved more than 200 kinds of ancient creatures, which is enough to attract all curious and curious eyes, and can also be transformed into a wonderful anime image, attracting teenagers from all over the world to visit the magical world of ancient creatures... (This article was originally published in the "Unity Newspaper" on April 1, 2017, and the author's name is Haipi, which is one of the pen names of the authors of this article)