The Animal Ancestors
Prof. M. D. Brasier, Dr. J. B. Antcliffe, Dr. R. Callow.
The ancestors project is an initiative to bring together a reference collection for studying the emergence of the animal phyla. This collection now consists of the earliest claimed representative "candidate fossils" of all the major animal phyla. The project then seeks to characterise these candidates as either reliable or unreliable/requiring further validation. Thus the emphasis is on the earliest reliable evidence rather than the earliest possible evidence for each of these major groups. As such, the project deals with major structural innovations in the evolution of animals, the evolution of biomineral architecture, the chronology and stratigraphic context of the Proterozoic and Cambrian systems, as well as modelling modern systems.
Much of the work cuts to the very heart of palaeobiology and evolution. We are interested in the following questions and their answers: what can be regarded as reliable evidence for the earliest animal phyla? How can higher taxa be characterised? How does the stem-group-concept map into the fossil record? How can phylogenetic trees be calibrated reliably against the fossil record? How and when did animal life originate? And, of course, was the Cambrian Explosion a real evolutionary event?
This work is gradually being published, and builds on research over the last 30 years of active research on the Precambrian-Cambrian transition and the Cambrian Explosion.
A book recounting the history, scientific philosophy, and findings of this work has now been published; Darwin's Lost World: The Hidden History of Animal Life.