Modern Wise Men Find Mystery Fossil Is Fruit of the Frankincense Family

The identity of a mysterious set of fossils that have puzzled scientists for decades has been unraveled.

A team of scientists has determined that the fossils, initially uncovered in the 1970s, represent the ancient remains of a plant from the frankincense and myrrh family.

Frankincense and myrrh are aromatic resins extracted from trees in the Burseraceae family, which contains more than 700 existing species found in various parts of the world.

These compounds have been used as incense, perfumes, and medicines since ancient times, often in religious and cultural ceremonies. They are still used today in traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicine, as well as in aromatherapy.

Frankincense and myrrh are perhaps best known in the United States from the Biblical account of the Three Wise Men, who, it is said, brought them along with gold as gifts to the newborn baby Jesus.

Frankincense comes from trees in the genus Boswellia. Myrrh, meanwhile, is produced by species in the genus Commiphora. Both of these groups belong to the wider Burseraceae family. The species from which frankincense and myrrh are extracted are primarily found in the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and India.

Early in the 1970s, a paleontologist conducting investigations on the outskirts of a village in India found small bead-like fossils embedded in rocks dotting the surrounding fields.

Further similar fossils, which seemed to be the remains of a fruit, were uncovered in India over the next several decades, but scientists could not identify what kind of plant they represented.

Research published this month in the International Journal of Plant Sciences, however, appears to have put the matter to rest.

Steven Manchester, curator of paleobotany at the Florida Museum of Natural History, used CT-scanning technology to create 3D reconstructions of the original fossil specimens and those collected in subsequent years. CT-scanning allows researchers to examine fossils without removing them from the rock matrix they are embedded in.

Manchester then showed the results of this work to a colleague, Walter Judd, courtesy curator of botany at the Florida Museum, who noticed something unusual about what initially appeared to be five triangular seeds inside a fruit.

"When I showed him the 3D images, he said, 'Those aren't seeds. Those are pyrenes,'" Manchester said in a press release, recalling his conversation with Judd.

Pyrenes are rock-hard structures found within some fruits that enclose seeds, providing them with an extra layer of protection. Examples of pyrenes include the hard stones found within the fruity flesh of peaches and dates.

Trying to distinguish a seed from a pyrene is challenging, particularly when tiny—as was the case with the fossils examined in the latest study. Traditional paleobotany methods involve incrementally dissolving fossils in acid and observing each new layer under a microscope. But these had proven insufficient in this case.

"If we had specimens that fractured at just the right plane, I would have been able to recognize them, but with the material we had on hand, I couldn't tell," Manchester said.

Eventually, the researchers were able to determine that the fruit belonged to an extinct species from the frankincense and myrrh family through a process of elimination. Few plant groups produce pyrenes, and fewer still contain five seeds arranged in the manner observed within the Indian fossils.

Intriguingly, the original fossils discovered in the 1970s, which are extremely well-preserved, pre-date the colossal asteroid impact around 66 million years ago that ushered in the end of the Cretaceous period and resulted in the extinction of much of life on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs.

This makes these specimens the oldest Burseraceae fossils discovered to date, according to the study—a finding that could have important implications for the origins of this family. Most fossils from this family that have been found to date have been found in rocks younger than the impact.

"These fossils indicate that the Burseraceae family was already established in the Late Cretaceous, by about 66 million years ago—earlier than previously known," Manchester told Newsweek. "It suggests the family may have origins in the southern hemisphere—where India was located at the time—rather than the northern hemisphere where most other fossils of the family have been found."

Update 12/22/23, 12:22 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional comments from Steven Manchester.