Water availability and climatic conditions profoundly control agricultural systems in different spatial-temporal conditions. Using new results of archaeobotanical research on the north Loess Plateau and extant macro-botanical data recovered from the eastern part of the north-south Loess Plateau, we investigated the ancient cropping patterns of different agrarian communities living in the marginal area of the East Asian monsoonal climatic zone. It indicated that the common millet ( Panicum miliaceum)–based cropping pattern was dominant in the north Loess Plateau during around 3000–1800 cal. BC. However, there is a preference for foxtail millet ( Setaria italica)–based farming combined with a certain amount of rice ( Oryza sativa) cultivation by the archaeological humans on the south of the Loess Plateau during the same periods. We infer the diverse ways of crop management selected by late Neolithic human beings adapting to various water stress that probably underpinned different developmental trajectories of ancient civilizations on the Loess Plateau during mid-late Holocene.

Recent archeobotanical work has shed light on prehistoric food globalization across the Eurasian landmass; however, much less research has focused on the foodways of the historical cities and settlements found throughout Central Asia on various portions of the ‘Silk Road’. Here, we present archeobotanical and isotopic results from recent excavations at Shichengzi, a Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220) military garrison. Our archeobotanical results recovered from 11 samples reveal that four types of cereals, naked barley, wheat, common millet, and foxtail millet, were the most common crops at the site. Naked barley, a drought and cold resistant crop, comprised 79% of the crop assemblage recovered from Shichengzi, and the rest of the assemblage is composed of wheat and millet. The reliance on drought resistant crops indicates that people at Shichengzi oriented their agricultural strategy toward mitigating environmental risks. In addition, our isotopic analyses (δ13C and δ15N) of charred cereal grains ( n = 22), animal and human remains ( n = 12) recovered from excavations at Shichengzi suggests that the δ15N values of cereals were enriched by human or livestock dung. Moreover, the δ13C data from Shichengzi suggest that farmers preferentially planted their crops in wide areas that would have received the highest amounts of water available on the northern piedmont of the Tianshan mountains. Our research contributes to the growing understanding of the diversity of agricultural strategies used along the Silk Road.

Without rapid international action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists have predicted catastrophic sea-level rise by 2100. Globally, archaeologists are documenting the effects of sea-level rise on coastal cultural heritage. Here, the authors model the impact of 1m, 2m and 5m sea-level rise on China's coastal archaeological sites using data from the Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics and Shanghai City's Third National Survey of Cultural Relics. Although the resulting number of endangered sites is large, the authors argue that these represent only a fraction of those actually at risk, and they issue a call to mitigate the direct and indirect effects of rising sea levels.