in

Dairy-millet synergy underpinned subsistence adaptation to Inner Asian mountains from 2900 BCE


Abstract

Dairy and millets have long sustained agropastoral societies in Inner Asia. While dairy pastoralism emerged across the eastern Eurasian steppe from 3000 BCE, the timing and process of its introduction into the Inner Asian mountains and integration with millet agriculture remains unclear due to the gaps in archaeological record. Here we present a long-term record of dairy–millet integration in the Inner Asian mountains, based on chronological, palaeoproteomic, and stable isotope analyses of the Narensu cemetery (3050 BCE–1430 CE) in Xinjiang. This evidence reveals the earliest known convergence of Eastern–Western agropastoral technologies from 2900 BCE. Horse milk was widely consumed by 840 BCE, followed by an intensification of agrarian product consumption during the Han–Xiongnu period. Combined with cross-regional evidence, we argue that the synergy of dairy pastoralism and millet shaped a sustainable mixed economy, underpinning resilient subsistence strategies and long-term socio-ecological adaptation in Xinjiang’s diverse environments.

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Data availability

The mass spectrometry proteomics data are available via the ProteomeXchange Consortium through the PRIDE partner repository under the dataset identifier PXD07242481. Supplementary Data 1–3 are available at the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19245757)85.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S.Y. Li from Tuoli County Museum of Xinjiang for the support in fieldwork. We thank W.Y. Li from Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Xinjiang for the approval of sampling. We thank H.R. Li, X.L. Deng, Y.X. Xu, and J.L. Guo from Lanzhou University for the assistance in laboratory. We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their careful evaluation of the manuscript and for providing highly constructive comments that helped improve the paper. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42501184), the Innovation Fund of the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (E551031256), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42202012 and 42401177).

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Menghan Qiu: Methodology; Investigation; Formal analysis; Data curation; Visualization; Writing–Original draft; Writing–Review & editing; Funding acquisition; Project administration. Shasha Yang: Investigation; Formal analysis; Data curation; Visualization; Writing–Original draft; Writing–Review & editing. Alimu Abudu: Investigation; Formal analysis; Visualization; Writing–Review & editing. Linyao Du: Investigation; Formal analysis; Visualization; Writing–Review & editing. Ziyun Yan: Formal analysis; Visualization. Huihui Cao: Formal analysis; Funding acquisition. Peilun Liu: Investigation; Formal analysis. Zhixiong Zhang: Formal analysis. Alifujiang Niyazi: Investigation; Resources; Supervision. Jianbao Liu: Resources. Yang Xu: Methodology; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Writing–Review & editing. Yinqiu Cui: Conceptualization; Methodology; Resources; Supervision. Guanghui Dong: Conceptualization; Resources; Funding acquisition; Writing–Review & editing; Supervision.

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Alifujiang Niyazi, Yang Xu or Guanghui Dong.

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Qiu, M., Yang, S., Abudu, A. et al. Dairy-millet synergy underpinned subsistence adaptation to Inner Asian mountains from 2900 BCE.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03487-y

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