Water availability and climatic conditions profoundly control agricultural systems in different spatial-temporal conditions. Using new results of archaeobotanical research on the north Loess Plateau and extant macro-botanical data recovered from the eastern part of the north-south Loess Plateau, we investigated the ancient cropping patterns of different agrarian communities living in the marginal area of the East Asian monsoonal climatic zone. It indicated that the common millet (Panicum miliaceum)–based cropping pattern was dominant in the north Loess Plateau during around 3000–1800 cal. BC. However, there is a preference for foxtail millet (Setaria italica)–based farming combined with a certain amount of rice (Oryza sativa) cultivation by the archaeological humans on the south of the Loess Plateau during the same periods. We infer the diverse ways of crop management selected by late Neolithic human beings adapting to various water stress that probably underpinned different developmental trajectories of ancient civilizations on the Loess Plateau during mid-late Holocene.

Recent archeobotanical work has shed light on prehistoric food globalization across the Eurasian landmass; however, much less research has focused on the foodways of the historical cities and settlements found throughout Central Asia on various portions of the ‘Silk Road’. Here, we present archeobotanical and isotopic results from recent excavations at Shichengzi, a Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220) military garrison. Our archeobotanical results recovered from 11 samples reveal that four types of cereals, naked barley, wheat, common millet, and foxtail millet, were the most common crops at the site. Naked barley, a drought and cold resistant crop, comprised 79% of the crop assemblage recovered from Shichengzi, and the rest of the assemblage is composed of wheat and millet. The reliance on drought resistant crops indicates that people at Shichengzi oriented their agricultural strategy toward mitigating environmental risks. In addition, our isotopic analyses (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) of charred cereal grains ( n = 22), animal and human remains ( n = 12) recovered from excavations at Shichengzi suggests that the δ¹⁵N values of cereals were enriched by human or livestock dung. Moreover, the calculated Δ¹³C values from Shichengzi suggest that farmers preferentially planted their crops in wide areas that would have received a large amount of water available on the northern piedmont of the Tianshan mountains. Our research contributes to the growing understanding of the diversity of agricultural strategies used along the Silk Road.

Renewed excavations at Shimao, the largest stone walled urban site in northern China dating to around 4200–3700 BP, have focused on Shimao’s unusual architecture and material culture, but there remains much to be known about the subsistence system and agricultural strategies the inhabitants employed around this site. In this paper we provide new archaeobotanical and isotopic evidence for the agricultural systems and strategies that supported Shimao and nearby sites, from 5000 to 3000 BP. Our data show that the system gradually shifted from one based on common millet as the main staple—requiring a high level of labour-input—to a system dependent on extensive cultivation of foxtail millet, which is better suited to dryland cultivation in colder environments. We argue that this shift in cultivation coincided with regional climate change, and helped sustain early Bronze Age state societies, which fuelled the rapid emergence of social complexity in the semi-arid and arid area of the northern Loess Plateau from 4200 to 3000 BP.

Without rapid international action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists have predicted catastrophic sea-level rise by 2100. Globally, archaeologists are documenting the effects of sea-level rise on coastal cultural heritage. Here, the authors model the impact of 1m, 2m and 5m sea-level rise on China's coastal archaeological sites using data from the Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics and Shanghai City's Third National Survey of Cultural Relics. Although the resulting number of endangered sites is large, the authors argue that these represent only a fraction of those actually at risk, and they issue a call to mitigate the direct and indirect effects of rising sea levels.

Human influence on ecological niches can drive rapid changes in the diet, behaviour and evolutionary trajectories of small mammals. Archaeological evidence from the Late Neolithic Loess Plateau of northern China suggests that the expansion of millet cultivation created new selective pressures, attracting small mammals to fields and settlements. Here, the authors present direct evidence for commensal behaviour in desert hares (Lepus capensis), dating toc. 4900 years ago. Stable isotope ratio analysis of hare bones from the Neolithic site at Yangjiesha shows a diachronic increase in a C₄(millet-based) diet, revealing, for the first time, the expansion of ancient human-hare interactions beyond the predator-prey relationship.

Han/non-Han interactions were engrained among the border regions of ancient Imperial China. Yet, little is known about either the genetic origins or the lifeways of these border peoples. Our study applies tools from ancient deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and stable isotope analysis to the study of a Han dynasty population at the Shichengzi site in modern-day Xinjiang. Isotopic analysis (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) of human (n = 8), animal (n = 26), and crop remains (n = 23) from Shichengzi indicated that dietary patterns among site inhabitants could be split among agro-pastoral and agricultural groups based on differences in the collagen ¹⁵N ratios. DNA analysis divided the four Shichengzi samples into two groups, with one group primarily harboring the ancient Northeast Asian (ANA) related ancestry, while the other showed a dominant Late Neolithic Yellow River (YR_LN) related ancestry. Both ancient DNA and stable isotope evidence point to the Northeast Asian origins of pastoralists and East Asian origins of Han agriculturalists, who, nonetheless, shared a single burial space at Shichengzi. This study thus provides clear evidence for the multiple origins and identities of populations across the porous border represented by the Han Empire and surrounding regions and proposes a new model for the interpretation of border culture in early Imperial China.