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The map representing the relationship between distance and traveling time (days) from the margin to the inner of the plateau.
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The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) has become a valuable site for investigation of adaptive regimes of prehistoric humans to extreme environments. At present most studies have focused solely on a single site. Using a more integrated approach that covers the complete scope of the plateau is needed to better understand the expansion logic of prehistoric...
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... time in CXGS site. Based on the model of the relationship between traveling distance and time, we obtained analysis results of the relationship between traveling distance and time from the margin to the inner QTP (Fig. 2). These results showed that the time from the margin of the plateau to the other known microlithic sites on the plateau was less than 45 days [15][16][17][18] . However, it should be noted that the time from the margin of the plateau to the SLK site was less than 15 days but the time from the margin of the plateau to CXGS site was ...
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... results showed that the time from the margin of the plateau to the other known microlithic sites on the plateau was less than 45 days [15][16][17][18] . However, it should be noted that the time from the margin of the plateau to the SLK site was less than 15 days but the time from the margin of the plateau to CXGS site was approximately 60 days ( Fig. 2). As discussed above, the time for hunter-gatherers to arrive at the inner plateau during one year should not exceed 60 days. Thus, based on the behavioral patterns of the hunter-gatherers presented above, if any hunter-gatherers entered an area that took ≥ 60 days, they would be unable to leave the plateau. However, if hunter-gatherers ...
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... areas. The CXGS site (33°48′17″N, 96°02′36″E, 4,030 m a.s.l (above sea level)) is located on the first terrace of the Tongtian River in the center of the QTP (Supplementary Figs. 2a, 4). The accumulated temperature of ≥ 0 °C that is measured throughout the year (from the beginning of the farming period until to the start of grass growth) is 1,009 °C. This accumulated temperature can only develop independently to husbandry production (Table 2). There are only 20 frost-free days throughout the year when the daily ...
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... Wedge-shaped microblade cores have long been considered a classic example of microlithic artifacts; notably, microblades and flakes also appeared at the site. Some studies have noticed that microblade technology in the CXGS site and "Layihai technology", which was found in the Yellow River Valley at the northeast margin of the plateau, exhib- (Fig. 4, Supplementary Fig. 2c). The SLK site has been considered to be a suitable site for planting industry, owing to its accumulated temperature of ≥ 0 °C throughout the year. There are approximately 186 frost-free days throughout the year when the daily minimum temperature is > 0 °C; these occur from April 16 to October 19. In the past, the dominant vegetation ...
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Citations
... To assess the geography of interactions between communities (and sub-communities) of farmers and herders, our model uses modelled vegetative productivity and land use as a prime factor to map potential mobility networks. Different from previous research which uses slope-derived mobility models based on the least-cost path methods 14,15 , we assume that ancient highland herders moved regularly towards lowland arable niches using rich-vegetal niches and high-quality pastures in the mountains and steppes, instead of moving through valley bottoms, per se. This resonates with the general movement pattern of contemporary agropastoral communities that are documented by ethnographic work and attested in archaeological studies 16,17 . ...
Tibetan cultures reflect deeply rooted, regional interactions and diverse subsistence practices across varied high-altitude environments of the Tibetan Plateau. Yet, it remains unclear how these cultural relationships and social interactions took shape through time and how they were influenced by ecologically oriented behavioral strategies (e.g. mobility) emerging in prehistory. Recent applications of network analysis provide novel tools to quantitatively measure shared forms of material culture, but there have been fewer attempts to couple social network analysis with fine-grained geospatial modelling of prehistoric human mobility in Tibet. In this study, we developed an integrated high-resolution geospatial model and network analysis that simulates and correlates subsistence-based mobility and ceramic-based cultural material connectivity across the Tibetan Plateau. Our analysis suggests that (1) ecologically driven patterns of subsistence-based mobility correspond geographically with Bronze and Iron Ages settlement patterns across the Tibetan Plateau; (2) diverse material interaction networks among communities within western and central Tibet and trans-Himalayan connectivity across the broader Inner Asian Mountain Corridor can be linked to modeled differences in regional networks of subsistence mobility. This research provides ecological and archaeological insights into how subsistence-oriented mobility and interaction may have shaped documented patterns of social and material connectivity among regional Bronze and Iron Age communities of the Tibetan Plateau, prompting a reconsideration of Tibet's long-term cultural geography.
... It is generally believed that during this period, humans only occasionally visited the high-elevation regions of the Tibetan Plateau and subsisted solely on hunting. In the middle to late stages of the Paleolithic (225-13.1 ka BP), the primary prey consisted of large and medium-sized mammals, such as rhinos (Dicerorhinus), Equidae, Cervidae, and Bovidae (Fan et al., 2009;Gao et al., 2020;Hou et al., 2020). However, in the early to middle Holocene (10.4-5 ka BP), hunting focused on smaller and medium-sized mammals, including Caprinae, Antilopinae, Rodentia, and foxes (Vulpes spp.) (Gai, 1983;Zhang et al., 2020). ...
The transition of human societies from high mobility to sedentary lifestyles had a profound impact on subsistence, technology, and the origin of civilization. Sedentism was influenced by various factors such as climate change, population growth, resource pressure, and technological innovation. The Tibetan Plateau, due to its alpine and hypoxic conditions, is an ideal region to study human adaptation to extreme environments. However, the prehistoric process of sedentism on the Tibetan Plateau is unclear and the chronological sequence and driving mechanism of sedentism on the Tibetan Plateau are still controversial. Previous studies have focused on the diffusion of agriculture from low to high elevation areas, with little attention given to the role of animal resources in sedentism. Seasonality analysis using animal remains is crucial in determining whether a site was occupied year-round. To establish the seasonal calendar of animal resource utilization, it is recommended to create a database of skeletal morphology, whole genome, and proteome of contemporary Tibetan Plateau fauna to aid in the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites. Thus, intricate web of human-animal-environment relationship and the role of animal resources in human sedentism on the Tibetan Plateau can then be evaluated.
... ka BP), there are at least nine well-dated sites on the Plateau, all concentrated in the Qinghai Lake basin (Madsen et al., 2006(Madsen et al., , 2017Rhode et al., 2014;Sun et al., 2012; To summarize, although these investigations provide sporadic evidence of early human activities on the Plateau, none of those above-mentioned sites possess solid evidence for continuous, yearround occupation of the Plateau's high-elevation habitats. While a long and complex history of Homo sapiens and other ancient human species exploiting resources and shelters on the Plateau seems likely, as discussed below, most scholars believe that permanent occupation most likely began during the optimal climatic conditions of the Holocene (Brantingham and Gao, 2006;Brantingham et al., 2007;Hou et al., 2010Hou et al., , 2020Meyer et al., 2017). Even then, some argue, colonists needed to be equipped with novel subsistence strategies beyond purely hunting and gathering (Chen et al., 2015;Li et al., 2019;Zhang et al., 2017). ...
High-elevation (>2500 m a.s.l.) environments pose severe challenges for human adaptation, and the timing and catalysts of their sustained year-round occupation remain a matter of debate. This article reviews recent archaeological and genetic research on the peopling of the Tibetan Plateau, and presents the results of new least cost path modeling. It is argued that permanent occupation by foragers before the Holocene was possible and that the concept of "permanency" needs clarification. Evidence for the persistence of indigenous populations and traditional foraging economies after the introduction of domesticates further suggests that diffusionist views treating the Plateau's indigenous societies as passive recipients of memes and genes should be abandoned. The diverse topographies, ecosystems, and cultural traditions found within and surrounding the Plateau hold potential for having offered multiple pathways to food production and attendant societal interactions. Recent discoveries from the Gebusailu Cemetery suggest that such potential is particularly high for the western Plateau given its biographic extremity and pivotal position between complex polities in Central and northeast South Asia. Through comparison with archaeological materials from the Ethiopian Highlands and Andean Altiplano, it is further suggested that hunter-gatherers sustained year-round occupations in the Plateau's interior during the Pleistocene and early Holocene, and that the emergence of domestication played a significant role in promoting the large-scale peopling of high-altitudes. Long-term interactions between indigenous peoples and newcomers contributed to the formation of Plateau civilizations.
... Travel cost models, obsidian tracking, and ethnoarchaeological analogs of site locations suggest that long-distance seasonal migration may have occurred between the lowlands and the plateau (Perreault et al., 2016;Hou et al., 2020). These sites may be multiple stations in a Paleolithic foraging system that moved across the edge of the Tibetan Plateau during the early Holocene. ...
... Specifically, populations characterized by microblade technology have been documented from the north-eastern to western Tibetan Plateau at least since the early Holocene . Whether these huntergatherer populations followed a highland-lowland seasonal migration or settled permanently (Hou et al., 2020) is still in doubt . This paper argues that the barley model ignores the possibility of long-term occupancy of the plateau landscape by hunter-gatherers on the one hand and, on the other hand, overlooks the earlier contributions of millet farming (Li et al., 2019). ...
... Early year-round settlements before the Holocene should be established by studies on site functions and fauna analysis relevant to seasonality and mobility. Ecological models may be supplementary to predict refugia or movement patterns during climate degradations [78,79]. In this case, hunter-gatherers continually occupy high elevations despite extreme climates in LGM and YD, and agriculture is not the prerequisite for year-round settlement. ...
Recent archaeological discoveries suggest that both archaic Denisovans and Homo sapiens occupied the Tibetan Plateau earlier than expected. Genetic studies show that a pulse of Denisovan introgression was involved in the adaptation of Tibetan populations to high-altitude hypoxia. These findings challenge the traditional view that the plateau was one of the last places on earth colonized by H. sapiens and warrant a reappraisal of the population history of this highland. Here, we integrate archaeological and genomic evidence relevant to human dispersal, settlement, and adaptation in the region. We propose two testable models to address the peopling of the plateau in the broader context of H. sapiens dispersal and their encounters with Denisovans in Asia.
The occupation process and survival strategies of prehistoric humans on the Tibetan Plateau are important scientific questions for understanding human adaptation to extreme high-altitude environments. Here, we report a newly discovered microlithic site at Daiqu (DQ) in the Tongtian River basin of the central-eastern plateau. We collected 239 lithic artifacts from the DQ site for typological analysis. OSL and AMS ¹⁴ C dating samples were collected from the human active layer. Lipid residues from hearth sediments were analyzed, and we simulated and assessed environmental extremity and route accessibility for the site. Dating results suggest that the stable sedimentary layers began to form around 10.96 ± 0.56 ka BP at the DQ site. Human activity at DQ as early as 9271 ± 143 cal a BP, making it the earliest reported Holocene site with accurate stratigraphic dating on the plateau hinterland to date. Hearths and lithic artifacts indicate that the DQ site was a frequently used seasonal hunting camp, where quality lithic raw material was obtained and microliths processed. Prehistoric humans occupying the site relied on non-ruminant terrestrial animals as food resources. The DQ site is ideally situated to serve as a transit station for hunter-gatherers as they migrated between high and low elevations. Ameliorating Holocene climate promoted prehistoric human exploration of more environmentally extreme areas.
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is essential for converging eastern, western, and northern prehistoric cultural spheres of Asia and Europe and for human adaptation to extreme environments. Reconstruction of the location and development of prehistoric exchange routes on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau underpins understanding human response to harsh environments and interaction and exchange between the three cultural spheres. This study simulates exchange routes for the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, using elevation, slope, vegetation, and rivers as cost data and site points as node data. A weighted network consisting of nodes and lines is constructed within the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau using a weighted cumulative cyclic connectivity model among nodes-the simulation abstracts exchange routes as a path search problem on this weighted network. The final simulated route is the road with the lowest incremental cost. The results give a total length of Neolithic routes of about 16,900 km, with 15 main roads, and a total length of Bronze Age routes of approximately 16,300 km, with 18 main roads. Pathway development from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age shows an apparent successional relationship, with a spatial evolution from the marginal corridor to the marginal hinterland. The simulated routes overlap highly with archaeological evidence for transmission routes of corn and millet agriculture and wheat agriculture-domesticated animals-bronze metallurgy technology, indicating the reliability of the simulation results. Further analysis showed that the unique physical geography of the QTP constrained the formation and evolution of routes. River valleys were commonly chosen as routes to acclimatize people to the high, cold, and low oxygen levels of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Scattered small agricultural bases, established in areas of the QTP suitable for agricultural planting, are the basis for intersecting exchange routes. Road formation also reflects the clear differentiation in the agro-pastoral industry between high and low altitudes related to climate, ecological environment, and elevation. Interaction between agricultural and nomadic populations is the crucial motivation for forming and developing the exchange routes.
The increased frequency of flooding on the Tibetan Plateau as a result of global warming has affected the lives of millions of people along the river valleys. The relationship between human settlement, climate change, and the frequency of flooding at long time scales is still unclear primarily due to the lack of a robust chronology for flooding deposits. In this study, AMS ¹⁴C dating, single-grain quartz OSL dating, and single-grain K-feldspar pIRIR dating using pIR50IR170 and pIR200IR290 signals were applied to the fluvial-paleosol sequence at the archaeology site Shalongka (SLK20) in the upper Yellow River valley on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, where Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age cultural layers were found. Utilizing luminescence characteristics analysis and a comparison of quartz OSL ages, K-feldspar pIRIR ages, and charcoal ¹⁴C ages, the reliability of single-grain quartz OSL and K-feldspar pIRIR ages was tested. Our results indicate that single-grain K-feldspar pIRIR170 dating with the minimum age model (MAM) can be used to date Holocene fluvial deposit that have been poorly bleached. Based on the age-depth model, proxy data of the SLK20 grain size and magnetic susceptibility demonstrate that Yellow River overbank flooding increased during the periods 9.9–9.1, ∼8.0, 7.6–6.3 and 5.0-3.4 kyr BP; during the intervals between these periods, Yellow River overbank decreased and paleosols developed. Human occupations, as indicated by the appearance of cultural layers at the SLK20 site during the ∼8.1, ∼7.8, 6.3–5.0 and 3.4–2.0 kyr BP periods, occurred when paleosol developed. The variation in East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) intensities caused a moist and warm mid-Holocene climate at the SLK20 site, which was conducive to human settlement. Flood events caused by EASM precipitation changes during the mid-Holocene significantly influenced human settlement at the SLK20 site. During the middle to late Holocene, as EASM decreased in the region, the improvement of subsistence strategies likely dominated human settlement on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau.
