Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 48 (2023) 103899 Available online 20 February 2023 2352-409X/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. New archaeobotanical evidence for Tolai hare (Lepus tolai) millets-consumption on the Loess Plateau of China Pengfei Sheng a, b, 1 , Jingwen Liao c, 1 , Edward Allen b , Zhouyong Sun d , Songmei Hu d , Ying Guan e, * , Xue Shang f, * a Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China b Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, and MOE Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance Fudan University, Shanghai, China c Department of Archaeological Sciences, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands d Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an, China e Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China f Department of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Niche construction Ecological interaction Dental residues Hare Millet agriculture Late Neolithic Loess Plateau ABSTRACT This study presents the results of a preliminary investigation on micro-botanical remains preserved on Tolai hare (Lepus tolai) teeth recovered from Yangjiesha, a site located on the north of the Loess Plateau in China, dated circa. 4900B.P. The microscopic analysis reveal that starch grains from Triticeae, millets and their wild relatives as well as wood tissue fragments were identifed in dental residues This implies that, in the context of the intensive development of millet farming at about 5000B.P., hares at Yangjiesha may have been active inside or near the agricultural settlement areas and formed long-term interactions with humans against the new agri- cultural ecology of the north Loess Plateau. 1. Introduction While niche construction theory has sparked intense academic debate over the past decade (see Gremillion et al., 2014a; b; Smith, 2014; Zeder, 2014), as a methodological toolkit it has undoubtedly enabled archaeologists to develop a new explanatory framework on the trajectories of human-animal ecological interactions during the expan- sion of sedentary means of food production (Zeder, 2012; Larson and Fuller, 2014; Boivin et al., 2016; Weissbrod et al., 2017). Certain human niche construction activities, among them the establishment of dense agricultural settlements and farmlands for intensive and/or extensive crop production and crop storage, are thought to create new selection pressures for parasitic domesticoids in plant and animal communities, altering their ecological niches (Smith, 2011a; Zeder, 2015; Boivin et al., 2016; Fuller and Stevens, 2017). Archaeologists working in China have found isotopic evidence that millet agriculture in Late Neolithic times infuenced the diet of animals in/near human settlements in the case of Chinese zokor (Myospalax fontanierii), brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), and Leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) (Guan et al., 2008; Hu et al., 2014; Vigne et al., 2016). This inspires further reexamination on the possible processes and causes of co-evolution between humans and other species from an ecological perspective. Our previously published research on the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of the dietary pattern of Tolai hare (Lepus tolai), a va- riety of rodent widely distributed on the steppe and desert areas of Eurasia (Fig. 1), has shed some light on human-hare interactions against a backdrop of expanding millet cultivation (Setaria italica and Panicum miliaceum) in late Neolithic China (Sheng et al., 2020a; Sheng et al., 2020b). The archaeological discovery of Tolai hare jaws and preserved teeth at the Yangjiesha site (杨界沙) (109 ◦ 14 ′ E, 38 ◦ 02 ′ N) located on the northern Loess Plateau (Fig. 2), provide essential materials for dental residue analysis of hares from this small late Neolithic Haishengbulang Culture (海生不浪文化) settlement, dated 5000–4700B.P. The late Neolithic Haishengbulang Culture, distributed across south-central Inner Mongolia and later spreading to northern Shaanxi, is character- ized by the development of cave-dwelling that in some cases date back to roughly 5000B.P. (Yin, 2018). In recent decades, dental residue analysis has been widely applied in * Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: guanying@ivpp.ac.cn (Y. Guan), shangxue@ucas.ac.cn (X. Shang). 1 Pengfei Sheng and Jingwen Liao contributed equally to this work and share frst authorship. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.103899 Received 13 September 2022; Received in revised form 12 February 2023; Accepted 13 February 2023