The earliest Neolithic site in Inner Mongolia and its implications for post-Younger Dryas climate-human interactions

Human evolution during the Paleolithic-Neolithic transition n (∼15,000–10,000 years ago) has been closely linked to climate fluctuations, marked by significant societal and environmental shifts. However, the West Liao River Basin (WLRB) in eastern Inner Mongolia, North China, a key region of early East Asian civilizations, remains underexplored for this period. Situated at the modern margin of the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM), the WLRB offers valuable archaeological insights for understanding human responses to climate change during this pivotal phase in prehistory. Dali Lake, located in the upper reaches of the WLRB, is particularly climatically sensitive and serves as a hitherto unstudied but potentially crucial location for exploring pre-Holocene climate impacts on human development. Here, we have newly discovered an archaeological site along the shoreline of Dali Lake, named the Dali Lake site (DL site). The site contains a rich assemblage of cultural remains, including pottery shards, stone artifacts, and faunal remians. Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modeling of bone and charcoal samples from the cultural layer indicate that human occupation at the DL site likely began between 11,753 and 11,298 cal BP, and ended between 10,502 and 10,075 cal BP, predating the earliest known Xiaohexi and Xinglongwa Neolithic cultures in the WLRB. This finding bridges the gap in archaeological evidence from this transition period and establishes the DL site as both the earliest Neolithic site and the earliest pottery site in Inner Mongolia so far. Additionally, the DL site is positioned at one of the highest recorded lake-level highstands suggesting that human activity may have been influenced by, or even adapted to, fluctuating lake levels driven by climatic changes over time. The discovery of the DL site has significant implications for understanding the interactions between human development and climate warming, as evidenced by high lake levels in Inner Mongolia following the Younger Dryas (YD) cold period (∼12,900–11,600 cal BP).