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In north-central China, subsistence practices transitioned from hunting and gathering to millet-based agriculture between the early and middle Holocene. To better understand how ancient environmental changes influenced this shift in subsistence strategies and human activities at regional to local levels, we conducted palynological and lithologic analyses on radiocarbon-dated sediment cores from the Luoyang Basin, western Henan Province. Our palynological results suggest that vegetation shifted from broad-leaved deciduous forest (9230–8850 cal yr BP) to steppe-meadow vegetation (8850–7550 cal yr BP), and then to steppe with sparse trees (7550–6920 cal yr BP). Lithologic analyses also indicate that the stabilization of the Luoyang Basin’s floodplain after ~8370 cal yr BP might have attracted people to move into the basin, promoting the emergence of millet-based agriculture during the Peiligang culture period (8500–7000 cal yr BP). Once agricultural practices emerged, the climatic optimum after ~7550 cal yr BP likely facilitated the expansion of the Yangshao culture (7000–5000 cal yr BP) in north-central China. As agriculture intensified, pollen taxa related to human disturbance, such as Urtica, increased in abundance.

Coal has long fueled human civilizations. The history of systematic coal fuel exploitation has been traced back to the late third millennium before present (post-2500 B.P.). Although sporadic combustion of coal for fuel was reported in some prehistoric archaeological sites, evidence for the systematic exploitation of coal for fuel before 2500 B.P. remains lacking. Here, we report comprehensive understanding for the earliest systematic exploitation of coal for fuel at the Jirentaigoukou site in Xinjiang, northwestern China, at ~3600 B.P. The main body of the site witnessed systematic exploitation of bituminous coals, illustrating a complete chaîne opératoire with selective mining, planned storage, and extensive combustion. Our results transform the knowledge of energy history by extending the upper limit of the systematic exploitation of coal for fuel by approximately a millennium, and provide a precedent of energy transition under intense conflict between social demand and environmental deterioration.

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