Asynchronous Holocene human population changes in north and south China as related to animal resource utilization

During the Holocene, rich Neolithic and Bronze cultures developed in the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River valley (north China) and Yangtze River valley (south China), making them the core areas of past human activities. Thus, it is important to reveal the process and driving mechanism of regional population change. Agriculture development has always been taken as the key driver of population changes, and current studies mainly focus on the role that cultivation played, however, it is still unclear if animal resource utilization also contributed to regional population changes. Here, the spatiotemporal changes of population and domestic animal utilization levels in north and south China from 10 to 2 ka BP have been reconstructed based on 27,935 archaeological sites and faunal remains data from 94 sites, respectively, and the change in potential wild animal resources has been simulated by the Minimum Terrestrial Resource Model (MTRM). The results show asynchronous changes of population occurred in north and south China during 10–2 ka BP, which were correlated with regional domestic and potential wild animal resource utilization. In north China, more significant population growth corresponded to a greater increase of domestic animal ratios and a sharp decline of potential wild animal resources after 8 ka BP. In south China, less significant population growth was accompanied by a slower increase of domestic animal ratios and stable variations of potential wild animal resources. This research suggests that different changes of potential wild animal resources in north and south China contributed to spatial variations in survival pressure, utilization level of domestic animals, and population growth, which was further determined by asynchronous changes of precipitation in the two regions. This study explains the impact of climate changes on population from a new perspective.