Mobility and subsistence change as synchronous adaptation during Holocene climate amelioration: Integrated evidence from the early Holocene Xinglong occupation, southeastern Mongolian Plateau (China)

Abstract

In the southeastern Mongolian Plateau, climate records show drastic changes during the early Holocene and ecological environment underwent extensive amelioration. Meanwhile, a marked decline in residential mobility and an increase in occupational intensity suggest that hunter-gatherers in this region underwent important shifts in their subsistence strategies. This paper examines climate variability and environmental changes during the early Holocene (8.7–7.1 cal ka BP) and their impact on subsistence strategies at the Xinglong site by integrating archaeological, paleoenvironmental, macrobotanical, and faunal assemblage data. These chronologies indicate synchronous changes in climate amelioration, reduced mobility, a notable rise in the consumption of large ungulates, and a modest increase in millet cultivation. These multiple lines of evidence indicate that the warmer and wetter climate facilitated widespread forest expansion, leading to the formation of biomass-rich ecotones in the southeastern Mongolian Plateau. The forest-steppe environment enhanced the distribution and abundance of ungulates and caused resource amelioration likely enabled hunter-gatherers to decrease their residential mobility and concentrate on a narrower foraging spectrum. Millet cultivation was developing and was likely the concomitant of more settled lifeways, but millet starch could have been exploited at a very low level and contributed only minimally to the local economy.