title: Agriculture facilitated permanent human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau after 3600 B.P.
abstract: Our understanding of when and how humans adapted to living on the Tibetan Plateau at altitudes above 2000 to 3000 meters has been constrained by a paucity of archaeological data. Here we report data sets from the northeastern Tibetan Plateau indicating that the first villages were established only by 5200 calendar years before the present (cal yr B.P.). Using these data, we tested the hypothesis that a novel agropastoral economy facilitated year-round living at higher altitudes since 3600 cal yr B.P. This successful subsistence strategy facilitated the adaptation of farmers-herders to the challenges of global temperature decline during the late Holocene.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. fhchen@lzu.edu.cn ghdong@lzu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: F H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. fhchen@lzu.edu.cn ghdong@lzu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: G H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130-48, USA.
authors.forename: X Y
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: Y W
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Center for Comparative Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Barton
authors.affiliation: Qinghai Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Xining 810007, China.
authors.forename: X Y
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China.
authors.forename: Z J
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
authors.forename: M K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D000064:Acclimatization; D000383:Agriculture / Q000266:history*; D000531:Altitude; D001106:Archaeology; D002980:Climate; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D013696:Temperature; D018609:Tibet