A hilly 512&nbsp,ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang&rsquos fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate. They record the early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem. The site documents at least sixteen phyla and a variety of enigmatic groups as well as about 196 species, presenting exceptional testimony to the rapid diversification of life on Earth 530&nbspmillion years ago, when almost all of today&rsquos major animal groups emerged. It opens a palaeobiological window of great significance to scholarship.