title: Peaches Preceded Humans: Fossil Evidence from SW China.
abstract: Peach (Prunus persica, Rosaceae) is an extremely popular tree fruit worldwide, with an annual production near 20 million tons. Peach is widely thought to have origins in China, but its evolutionary history is largely unknown. The oldest evidence for the peach has been Chinese archaeological records dating to 8000-7000 BP. Here, we report eight fossil peach endocarps from late Pliocene strata of Kunming City, Yunnan, southwestern China. The fossils are identical to modern peach endocarps, including size comparable to smaller modern varieties, a single seed, a deep dorsal groove, and presence of deep pits and furrows. These fossils show that China has been a critical region for peach evolution since long before human presence, much less agriculture. Peaches evolved their modern morphology under natural selection, presumably involving large, frugivorous mammals such as primates. Much later, peach size and variety increased through domestication and breeding.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China.|State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wilf
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.|Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650204, China.
authors.forename: Yongjiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Land Resource Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China.
authors.forename: Shitao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China.|Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650204, China.
authors.forename: Zhekun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001947:Breeding; D005580:Fossils; D005638:Fruit / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D000068239:Prunus persica / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology; D012641:Selection, Genetic