The History and Driving Force for Prehistoric Human Expansion Upward to the Hinterland of the Tibetan Plateau Post–Last Glacial Maximum

Guangliang Hou, Weimiao Dong, Linhai Cai, Qingbo Wang and Menghan Qiu
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Guangliang Hou: Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, Qinghai Normal University, Xining 810016, China
Weimiao Dong: Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology & Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Linhai Cai: Qinghai Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Xining 810007, China
Qingbo Wang: Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, Qinghai Normal University, Xining 810016, China
Menghan Qiu: Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-18

Abstract: The timing and motivation of prehistoric human expansion into the hinterland of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a widely debated scientific issue. Recent archaeological studies have brought forward predictions of the earliest human occupation of the TP to the late–Middle Pleistocene. However, massive human occupation of the TP did not appear until the termination of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The spatio-temporal distribution of prehistoric hunter-gatherers on the TP varies significantly before the permanent occupation after 3600 BP (before present). Here, we report on environmental-archaeological evidence from the Canxionggashuo (CXGS) site in Yushu Prefecture, which provides information that is key to understanding the dynamics of post-LGM human occupation on the TP. Radiocarbon dating has revealed two occupation periods of the CXGS site at 8600–7100 cal (calibrated years) BP and 2400–2100 cal BP. The charcoal concentration in cultural layers correlates well with paleo–human activities. Hunter-gatherers expanded westwards from the northeastern margin of the TP to the hinterland of the TP during the warming period of the early–middle Holocene (~11,500–6000 BP). However, these groups retreated during the middle–late Holocene (~6000–3600 BP) under a cooling-drying climate. Prehistoric humans finally occupied the hinterland of the TP permanently after 3600 BP, with an enhanced cold-adaptive lifestyle, although the climate was still deteriorating.

Keywords: the Holocene; Tibetan Plateau; late Paleolithic; climate change; human occupation; subsistence strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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