Synchronous change in the intensified millet cultivation and ecological environment from the early to middle Holocene on the Inner Mongolia Plateau, northern China

Abstract

The mechanisms of the origin and dispersal of millet agriculture in northern China are poorly understood. We used plant macroremains, stable isotope compositions of human bone collagen, and pollen records from the Sitai site to reconstruct changes in subsistence strategies and their relationship with the ecological environment from the early to middle Holocene on the Inner Mongolian Plateau in northern China. Charred weed-like seeds, the bones of small mammals, eggshell fragments, together with microliths, indicate the practice of hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies during 10,500–10,200 cal yr BP. Deciduous broadleaved forest-steppe vegetation was present around the Sitai site during the early middle Holocene (8000–7000 cal yr BP). Additionally, isotopic compositions of human bones and plant remains reveal that millet agriculture and hunting-gathering appeared in the early middle Holocene. The spread of millet agriculture on the Inner Mongolian Plateau was likely favored by an increase in precipitation between 8000 and 7000 cal yr BP. The development of millet agriculture on the Inner Mongolia Plateau and the Loess Plateau was the prelude to its subsequent spread to the Tibet Plateau.