re: "as recently as 3.4 billion years ago"
Given the chemical composition of the solar system, I'd actually be deeply shocked if it turned out that Mars never had substantive liquid di-hydrogen monoxide deposits on its surface. The current thinking is that such lakes/oceans did not last long at all in a geological sense. Some claim well under even one million years. If true, that's not long enough for it to be probable for life to have evolved. Not that we really know much scientificly about that process.