Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or innovation. Nonetheless, these scholars continue to debate over when people first started foraging for grass seeds, when they began to readily utilize sickles, how prominent the early selection pressures were, and when the first traits of domestication fully introgressed into the cultivated grass population. Here, we present complementary archaeobotanical and archaeological (stone tool) evidence for cereal foragers from Toda-1 Cave in the Surkhan Darya, dating to 9200 cal BP. We conclude that early Holocene foragers were processing grains along with nuts and fruits as far north as the rich river valleys of southern Uzbekistan. These data expand the known range that preagricultural cereal foragers covered in the early Holocene, adding to our understanding of the cultural processes that led to farming. Additionally, we present the earliest evidence for people interacting with the progenitors for pistachios and apples (or a close apple relative). The complex foraging behaviors that led to cultivation were being undertaken by people during the early Holocene across a wider area of Eurasia than previously thought.

Evidence of Early and Middle Pleistocene wooden implements is exceptionally rare, and existing evidence has been found only in Africa and western Eurasia. We report an assemblage of 35 wooden implements from the site of Gantangqing in southwestern China, which was found associated with stone tools, antler billets (soft hammers), and cut-marked bones and is dated from ~361,000 to ~250,000 years at a 95% confidence interval. The wooden implements include digging sticks and small, complete, hand-held pointed tools. The sophistication of many of these tools offsets the seemingly “primitive” aspects of stone tool assemblages in the East Asian Early Paleolithic. This discovery suggests that wooden implements might have played an important role in hominin survival and adaptation in Middle Pleistocene East Asia.

A combination of sectioning and microscopy techniques, along with the application of finite-difference-time-domain modeling on a fossil feather, results in the novel estimation of the range of iridescent colors from the fossilized melanosome type and organization preserved in the elongate head crest feathers of a new Cretaceous enantiornithine bird. The densely packed rod-like melanosomes are estimated to have yielded from red to deep blue iridescent coloration of the head feathers. The shape and density of these melanosomes also may have further increased the feather’s structural strength. This occurrence on a likely male individual is highly suggestive of both a signaling function of the iridescent crest and a potential behavioral role in adjusting the angle of light incidence to control the display of this iridescent structural coloration.

The change in vegetation at the margins of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO) remains poorly understood. Here, we present a high-resolution terrestrial sequence, paleomagnetically dated to 18.2-13.5 Ma, from the Tongxin Basin of midwestern China. Our multi-indicator analysis, encompassing pollen, delta 13CTOC, delta 18Ocarb-delta 13Ccarb, and magnetic susceptibility, reveals that the regional vegetation and climate had two distinct stages during the MCO, manifesting as stable arid steppe from 17.0 to 16.0 Ma, and woodland steppe with six forested environments from 16.0 to 14.0 Ma. Together with other adjacent records, this supports the EASM as the main control on terrestrial vegetation. Further comparisons of marine-terrestrial data and time series analysis suggest that in the late MCO, the oceanic carbon reservoir (OCR) experienced strong perturbations (mainly Cmax events) accompanied by multiple oscillations. The instability signals likely impacted and were amplified as rapid shifts in forest-steppe environments at the monsoon margins via EASM. Our study highlights the regulation of inland ecologically vulnerable areas by low-latitude forcing in a greenhouse world. Exploring the response of vegetation to the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO, similar to 17.0-14.0 Ma) can serve as an analogy for studies of ecological impacts under future global warming. Here, we perform magnetostratigraphic dating and past vegetation-climate reconstruction in high-resolution terrestrial sediments in the Tongxin Basin of Midwest China, a region sensitive to the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). The records of several indicators, including pollen, delta 13CTOC, delta 18Ocarb-delta 13Ccarb and magnetic susceptibility, indicate that the regional climate and vegetation changed in two major stages across the warm MCO. Between 16.0 and 17.0 Ma, the regional vegetation was predominantly stable arid steppe, followed by at least six rapid oscillations between arid steppe and forest environments between 14.0 and 16.0 Ma. Further analyses show that EASM intensity dominates regional changes in vegetation, and its changing pattern is quasi-similar to global oceanic delta 13C changes reflecting the state of oceanic carbon reservoir (OCR). Multiple rapid shifts in the forest-steppe landscape during the late MCO are closely related to fluctuations in the EASM system, which are modulated by strong oscillations in the OCR. Our study reveals the non-negligible role of the low-latitude marine carbon cycle in forcing inland ecologically vulnerable areas during global climatic warming. The age of the Miocene Tongxin Fauna is constrained to 18.0-14.0 Ma by magnetostratigraphy and biostratigraphy The stability of the regional climate-vegetation system underwent a two-stage evolutionary pattern during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO) Regional vegetation oscillations are likely to respond to ocean carbon reservoir perturbation in the late MCO

Apart from northern and central China, the fossil record of the latest Miocene and Early Pliocene of Asia is not well documented and the record of South China during this interval is especially poor. Shuitangba, a site in Yunnan Province, offers a rare window into the paleoenvironment of the latest Miocene in southwestern China. Over 2400 vertebrate and macrobotanical specimens have been recovered from the site. The faunal assemblage is dominated by aquatic avian taxa and many of the mammalian taxa are those that indicate densely vegetated, water-margin habitats. Pollen and carpological remains indicate a temperate to subtropical, broad-leaved/coniferous forest around standing water, with more open areas containing grasses and herbs. Analyses of clay minerals, chemical weathering, and enamel stable isotopes suggest that Shuitangba was warmer and more humid than today, possibly with more pronounced seasonality. Results of community structure analysis indicate that the Shuitangba mammalian community was different from those of other Late Miocene Chinese sites in the high proportions of aquatic-dependent mammalian taxa. While Shuitangba shared mammalian faunal elements with other Late Miocene sites in Yunnan, it was still faunally distinct. Further, Shuitangba was depauperate in its mammalian fauna, which may have been a result of the depositional setting rather than a true reflection of regional faunal diversity.

Various lines of evidence have been used to infer the origin of human bipedalism, but the paucity of hominoid postcranial fossils and the diversity of inferred locomotor modes have tended to confound the reconstruction of ancestral morphotypes. Examination of the bony labyrinth morphology of the inner ear of extinct and living hominoids provides independent evidence for inferring the evolution of hominoid locomotor patterns. New computed tomography data and morphometric analyses of the Late Miocene ape Lufengpithecus indicate that it and other stem great apes possess labyrinths similar to one another and show that hominoids initially evolved from a positional repertoire that included orthogrady, below-branch forelimb suspension and progression, above-branch bipedalism, climbing, clambering, and leaping (hylobatid-like) to one that comprised above-branch quadrupedalism, below-branch forelimb suspension, vertical climbing, limited leaping, terrestrial quadrupedal running and walking, possibly with knuckle walking, and short bouts of bipedalism (chimpanzee-like). The bony labyrinth morphology of Lufengpithecus indicates that it probably conforms more closely to the last common ancestors of crown hominoids and hominids in its locomotor behavior than do other Miocene hominoids. Human bipedalism evolved from this common archetypal Lufengpithecus-like locomotor repertoire. The low evolutionary rate of semicircular canal morphology suggests that Lufengpithecus experienced a relative stasis in locomotor behavior, probably due to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, which created a stable environment in the Miocene of southwestern China.

The inference of Mesozoic avialan bird diets previously relied on traditional methods such as morphological comparisons among taxa and direct evidence such as identifiable stomach contents. However, the application of these approaches has been limited because of uncommon preservation of relevant fossil evidence. We searched for additional informative characteristics to help develop new methods to assess the diet of fossil birds. In particular, the morphology of the avialan neck is highly modularized and plays roles in multiple functions including food acquisition. The structure of and variation among the cervical vertebrae likely reflects the demands of feeding ecology in fossil and extant birds because the avialan neck evolved to, at least in part, replace the forelimbs by assisting with activities such as cranioinertial feeding and other ecological functions. Here, we utilize morphometric and statistical analyses to establish an initial quantitative relationship between cervical morphology and dietary modes in both extant and extinct birds. This morphometric framework derived from the cervical morphology of living birds is used as a basis to estimate the diet categories of five taxa of Mesozoic birds. The results indicate that there is a quantitative correlation between cervical morphology differentiation and their interrelated feeding modes. The enantiornithine taxa examined exhibit cervical morphologies similar to extant insectivorous or carnivorous birds. The ornithurine species show cervical morphologies that are more aligned with generalist or herbivorous birds, and exhibit preliminary morphological features tied to aquatic adaptions. These findings are consistent in part with other direct fossil evidence, as well as hypotheses developed from other skeletal comparisons. Therefore, the cervical vertebral series, as a skeletal system closely linked to food acquisition, can serve as one of the valuable metrics to provide information for inferring the diet of long extinct Mesozoic birds.

The partial skeleton of a fossil snake is described from the Upper Miocene "Liushu" Formation of the Linxia Basin, Gansu Province, in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau of China. Material preserves rare cranial materials of the palatomaxillary arch, in addition to a series of vertebrae, represents a new species of erycine sand boa, Eryx linxiaensis sp. nov., the first fossil record of the superfamily Booidea in China. Combined phylogenetic analysis of osteological, ecological, and molecular data places this new extinct species within the crown clade Eryx as the sister species to the African E. colubrinus, with an average divergence time inferred as similar to 8.1 Ma. Eryx linxiaensis sp. nov. differs from the congeneric species by the combination of a series of morphological characters including the slightly dorsoventrally thickened anterior part of the maxilla, eleven maxillary teeth decrease in size posteriorly, more than five pterygoid teeth, relatively elongated middle trunk vertebrae with obvious haemal keel on the centrum, and short neural spine without a thickened dorsal edge. Multiple linear regressions of four vertebral measurements against the body size of extant specimens using an allometric model provide an estimated minimum total body length of c. 694 mm. Estimated species divergence times across the phylogenetic tree support intercontinental dispersals and overall radiation of the clade through the Miocene, potentially tied to increased aridification during parts of the Miocene. Our analysis also suggests that the Eryx crown clade evolved in Africa with at least three intercontinental dispersal events between African and Eurasian continents during the Miocene.

This is the original data used in the ecological paper titled "Uncovering widespread Anthropocene dietary shifts in Chinese large mammalian herbivores". There are a total of seven Excel files and one txt file:factors_species.xlsx, which lists the variables or factors used for regression analysis.Human-dominated landuse.xlsx, which details the expansion of human-dominated land in various provinces of China during the 20th century.Species coordinates.xlsx, that provides the average geographic coordinates of early and late samples for each species, as well as the provinces from which they originate.Code for microwear diversity. txt. The code of calculating microwear diversity with the package FD.a_e.csv & a_w.csv. The matrices "a" of eastern & western China respectively for FD. #Abbreviation Reference: e1 = east-early; e2 = east-late; w1 = west-early; w2 = west-late; The capital letters represent the acronyms of the latin names of species, except: CA = Capra sibirica, CL = Cervus elaphus.microwear_e.csv & microwear_w.csv. a_e.csv & a_w.csv. The matrices "x" of eastern & western China respectively for FD.

The Cretaceous is a critical time interval that encompasses explosive diversifications of terrestrial vertebrates, particularly the period when the earliest-branching birds, after divergence from their theropod ancestors, evolved the characteristic avian Bauplan that led eventually to their global radiation. This early phylogenetic diversity is overwhelmed by the Ornithothoraces, consisting of the Enantiornithes and Ornithuromorpha, whose members evolved key derived features of crown birds. This disparity consequently circumscribes a large morphological gap between these derived clades and the oldest bird Archaeopteryx. The non-ornithothoracine pygostylians, with an intermediate phylogenetic position, are key to deciphering those evolutionary transformations, but progress in their study has been hampered by the limited diversity of known fossils. Here we report an Early Cetaceous non-ornithothoracine pygostylian, Cratonavis zhui gen. et sp. nov., that exhibits a unique combination of a non-avialan dinosaurian akinetic skull with an avialan post-cranial skeleton, revealing the key role of evolutionary mosaicism in early bird diversification. The unusually elongated scapular and metatarsal one preserved in Cratonavis highlights a breadth of skeletal plasticity, stemming from their distinct developmental modules and selection for possibly raptorial behaviour. Mapped changes in these two elements across theropod phylogeny demonstrate clade-specific evolutionary lability.

Angiosperms became the dominant plant group in early to middle Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems, coincident with the timing of the earliest pulse of bird diversification. While living birds and angiosperms exhibit strong interactions across pollination/nectivory, seed dispersal/frugivory, and folivory, documentation of the evolutionary origins and construction of that ecological complexity remains scarce in the Mesozoic. Through the first study of preserved in situ dietary derived phytoliths in a nearly complete skeleton of the early diverging avialan clade Jeholornithidae, we provide direct dietary evidence that Jeholornis consumed leaves likely from the magnoliid angiosperm clade, and these results lend further support for early ecological connections among the earliest birds and angiosperms. The broad diet of the early diverging avialan Jeholornis including at least fruits and leaves marks a clear transition in the early evolution of birds in the establishment of an arboreal (angiosperm) herbivore niche in the Early Cretaceous occupied largely by birds today. Morphometric reanalysis of the lower jaw of Jeholornis further supports a generalized morphology shared with other herbivorous birds, including an extant avian folivore, the hoatzin.

Study of the holotype and only known material of the purportedly extinct corvid species ‘ Corvus fangshannus ’ from the late Middle or Late Pleistocene locality 3 of the UNESCO Zhoukoudian ‘Peking Man’ site in Beijing, China, documents its identification instead as a member of the sedentary Northern Raven ( Corvus corax ) lineage. Shared features of the humerus including those consistent with species of Corvus (protruding ventral tubercle and rounded and not prominent bicipital crest) and a combination of features (including overall size and the presence of a concave ventral margin where the ventral supracondylar tubercle projects ventral to the diaphysis) help to support the allocation of this Pleistocene material to that particular species’ lineage. Ravens do not occur historically within the Beijing Municipality, and this reidentified fossil is the first record from the area. When considered alongside a similar extralimital record based on a recently reported Middle Pleistocene raven skull from Liaoning Province, these fossils together may indicate that the Northern Raven’s prehistoric geographic distribution in northeastern China encompassed a broader area south of its current distribution extending to ~ 40–41 degrees latitude. Changes to the raven’s geographic distribution likely are linked to shifts between cooler and drier climates and warmer ones, along with their interactions with extinct non-analogous vertebrate communities of the Pleistocene. These ravens would have scavenged alongside hyenas, other large mammalian carnivores, and even early humans in northern China.

Recently, Nature Communications published a study on the feeding habits of an ancient extinct bird called Jeholornis from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of China led by researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.1 Jeholornis and its closely related species are regarded as part of the second most primitive lineage in the family tree of birds, retaining a long bony dinosaurian tail, small teeth, and large claws on the wings. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the scientific team discovered hundreds of phytoliths originated from the leaves of the basal angiosperm group called magnoliids (which includes living magnolias, cinnamon, and avocadoes), while investigating the stomach residues contents of a well-preserved 120-million-year-old juvenile Jeholornis fossil.

Fossil evidence is indispensable for studying the derivation, divergence, and dispersal of squirrels as they responded to global Cenozoic climatic and paleoenvironmental change. Among these fossil records, the earliest known definitive fossil squirrels in Eurasia occur after the Eocene/Oligocene Boundary and are slightly younger than the oldest records in North America. Here, we report the discovery of two new extinct large squirrel species from the late Eocene of the Junggar Basin in northwestern China. The dental morphologies of these new taxa represent tree and flying morphotypes, and their estimated body masses are approximately 1.2 kg and 2.6 kg, respectively. In addition, these extinct lineages push the age of the first appearance of Sciuridae in northern Asia into the late Eocene. Together with Douglassciurus and Oligospermophilus from North America, these two new squirrels from the Junggar Basin are the earliest records of sciurids, and analysis of their teeth clearly demonstrates that the three principle morphotypes of sciurids (flying, ground, and tree squirrels) had diverged from one another by the late Eocene. That proposed late Eocene divergence among the major groupings of sciurids is consistent with some molecular clock analyses and helps to document that macroevolutionary timing and pattern. Comparison with modern squirrel analogs for body masses over 1 kg points to these early Chinese species as having occupied forested habitats, and that hypothesis is congruent with published palynological studies. Furthermore, these two new squirrel taxa from Jeminay provide new data to evaluate the examination of the long-term aridification of Central Asia.

The independent movements and flexibility of various parts of the skull, called cranial kinesis, are an evolutionary innovation that is found in living vertebrates only in some squamates and crown birds and is considered to be a major factor underpinning much of the enormous phenotypic and ecological diversity of living birds, the most diverse group of extant amniotes. Compared to the postcranium, our understanding of the evolutionary assemblage of the characteristic modern bird skull has been hampered by sparse fossil records of early cranial materials, with competing hypotheses regarding the evolutionary development of cranial kinesis among early members of the avialans. Here, a detailed three-dimensional reconstruction of the skull of the Early Cretaceous enantiornithine Yuanchuavis kompsosoura allows for its in-depth description, including elements that are poorly known among early-diverging avialans but are central to deciphering the mosaic assembly of features required for modern avian cranial kinesis. Our reconstruction of the skull shows evolutionary and functional conservation of the temporal and palatal regions by retaining the ancestral theropod dinosaurian configuration within the skull of this otherwise derived and volant bird. Geometric morphometric analysis of the palatine suggests that loss of the jugal process represents the first step in the structural modifications of this element leading to the kinetic crown bird condition. The mixture of plesiomorphic temporal and palatal structures together with a derived avialan rostrum and postcranial skeleton encapsulated in Yuanchuavis manifests the key role of evolutionary mosaicism and experimentation in early bird diversification.

We describe six specimens consisting of cranial remains and associated partial presacral axial series belonging to ornithuromorph birds from the Changma locality of the Lower Cretacous Xiagou Formation of northwestern Gansu Province, China. Comparison among specimens is limited by the paucity of overlapping elements, their differing exposed views, and, in some specimens, poor preservation. Despite this, three separate taxa are represented, evidenced by differences in their dentary dentitions: one specimen is edentulous, another has sharp, closely spaced, relatively high-crowned and peg-like teeth, and a third preserves blunt, relatively low-crowned teeth placed in a communal groove, a morphology previously reported among adult birds only in Hesperornithiformes. We propose that the high-crowned specimen may be referred to Gansus yumenensis based on shared similarities with the closely related Iteravis huchzermeyeri, including a very similar dentition and an edentulous premaxilla with elongate, unfused frontal processes and no palatal processes. The two other specimens are considered new taxa, for which we erect the names Meemannavis ductrix gen. et sp. nov. and Brevidentavis zhangi gen. et sp. nov. These new specimens confirm that the Changma locality is dominated by ornithuromorph birds and contribute to a better understanding of this important avifauna. The observed variation in dental morphology hints at trophic diversity like that observed in ornithuromorphs from the penecontemporaneous Jehol Group of northeastern China.

Whether or not nonavian dinosaur biodiversity declined prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction remains controversial as the result of sampling biases in the fossil record, differences in the analytical approaches used, and the rarity of high-precision geochronological dating of dinosaur fossils. Using magnetostratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy, we establish a high-resolution geochronological framework for the fossil-rich Late Cretaceous sedimentary sequence in the Shanyang Basin of central China. We have found only three dinosaurian eggshell taxa (Macroolithus yaotunensis, Elongatoolithus elongatus, and Stromatoolithus pinglingensis) representing two clades (Oviraptoridae and Hadrosauridae) in sediments deposited between ∼68.2 and ∼66.4 million y ago, indicating sustained low dinosaur biodiversity, and that assessment is consistent with the known skeletal remains in the Shanyang and surrounding basins of central China. Along with the dinosaur eggshell records from eastern and southern China, we find a decline in dinosaur biodiversity from the Campanian to the Maastrichtian. Our results support a long-term decline in global dinosaur biodiversity prior to 66 million y ago, which likely set the stage for the end-Cretaceous nonavian dinosaur mass extinction.

Abstract. A latest Paleocene charophyte flora collected from the South Gobi area in the Junggar Basin, western China, includes the geographically widespread taxa Peckichara torulosa var. varians (Dollfus and Fritel, 1919) Sanjuan, Vicente, and Eaton, 2020, Lychnothmanus vectensis (Groves, 1926) Soulié-Märsche, 1989, and Gyrogona lemani capitata Grambast and Grambast-Fessard, 1981. Lychnothmanus vectensis (as Lychnothmanus aff. L. vectensis) is known from the Cretaceous–Paleocene transition in eastern China and the latest Paleocene in western China, with likely additional records from the United States (Utah). The earliest European records of L. vectensis are from the late Eocene to early Oligocene in Spain, France, and England. Similarly, the oldest record of G. lemani capitata is from the latest Paleocene in the South Gobi area, with younger records from the middle Eocene of France. These latest Paleocene gyrogonite assemblages demonstrate the origin of these charophyte lineages in Asia. The dispersal of these charophytes from Asia to Europe in the middle to late Eocene appears to have occurred before the retreat of the Turgai Strait in both the Tarim area and the Siberian Basin by the end of the late Eocene and before the “Grande Coupure” in Europe and the Mongolian Remodelling in Asia during the Eocene–Oligocene transition. We hypothesize that waterbirds may have facilitated this intercontinental dispersal, and that idea is supported by the shared occurrence of avian groups in Central Asia and Europe in the middle and late Eocene.

SignificanceOwls, with their largely nocturnal habits, contrast strikingly with the vast majority of diurnal birds. A new spectacular late Miocene owl skeleton from China unexpectedly preserves the oldest evidence for daytime behavior in owls. The extinct owl is a member of the clade Surniini, which contains most living diurnal owl species. Analysis of the preserved eye bones documents them as consistent with diurnal birds, and phylogenetically constrained character mapping coincides with a reconstruction of an early evolutionary reversal away from nocturnal habits in this owl group. These results support a potential Miocene origin of nonnocturnal habits in a globally distributed owl group, which may be linked to steppe habitat expansion and climatic cooling in the late Miocene.