Did pollination evolve before flowers?

It has generally been assumed that pollination originated with flowering plants. However, a study by Nils Cronberg et al. suggests that the process of having animals act as intermediaries in plant reproduction may have arisen long before flowering plants. Not only do springtails and mites move sperm between antheridia and archaegonia, fertile plants attract five times as many of these microarthropods and do sterile ones. (Read article in Science News, or original paper in Science)