¹ Elvin, Mark, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 9–18Google Scholar; Marks, Robert B., China: An Environmental History, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)Google Scholar.

² Our study region consists of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, and Hebei provinces, plus the Wei River basin in Gansu, and Beijing. While southern Shaanxi and Henan are not in the Yellow River Basin, the few sites from these regions did not include any species that were not common in sites further north, except for the giant panda and elephant remains at Xiawanggang, discussed below.

³ On how people in early China thought about animals, and their relationship with them, see Sterckx, Roel, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Guo Fu 郭郛, Li Yuese 李約瑟 (Joseph Needham), and Qingtai, Cheng 成慶泰, Zhongguo gudai dongwuxue shi 中國古代動物學史 (Beijing: Kexue, 1999)Google Scholar; Major, John S., “Animals and Animal Metaphors in the Huainanzi,” Asia Major 21.1 (2008): 133–51Google Scholar; Sterckx, Roel, “Attitudes towards Wildlife and the Hunt in Pre-Buddhist China,” in Wildlife in Asia: Cultural Perspectives, ed. Knight, John (London: Routledge Curzon, 2004), 15–35Google Scholar.

⁴ For a global archaeological synthesis of these issues, see Boivin, Nicole L. et al. , “Ecological Consequences of Human Niche Construction: Examining Long-Term Anthropogenic Shaping of Global Species Distributions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113.23 (2016): 6388–96CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

⁵ E.g., Chang, Kwang-chih, The Archaeology of Ancient China, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 79Google Scholar.

⁶ The Holocene megathermal, the warmest period of the past 10,000 years (c. 9000–4000 years ago), was about 1.5 degrees warmer, and precipitation was about 200 mm higher than at present in North China. Vegetation zones shifted northwards by around 200–300 km, so that Xi'an's climate was similar to that of modern Nanyang, Henan. Cold-intolerant plants and animals would have moved slightly northwards, including forests moving into areas that had been too arid. But the change was far too small to have any great effect on which mammals inhabited the Yellow River Valley. Lu, Hou-Yuan et al. , “Phytoliths as Quantitative Indicators for the Reconstruction of Past Environmental Conditions in China II: Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Loess Plateau,” Quaternary Science Reviews 26.5–6 (2007): 759–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cai, Yanjun et al. , “The Variation of Summer Monsoon Precipitation in Central China since the Last Deglaciation,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 291.1–4 (2010): 21–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zou, Songbing et al. , “Holocene Natural Rhythms of Vegetation and Present Potential Ecology in the Western Chinese Loess Plateau,” Quaternary International 194.1–2 (2009): 55–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ The idea of a “native species” shares the same etymological and intellectual roots as the idea of “natural,” which has a long and complex history: Williams, Raymond, “Ideas of Nature,” in Culture and Materialism (London: Verso, 2005), 67–85Google Scholar. Here we use “nature” and “wild” to refer to species and environments not created by or dependent on humans.

⁸ Crees, Jennifer J. and Turvey, Samuel T., “What Constitutes a ‘Native’ Species? Insights from the Quaternary Faunal Record,” Biological Conservation 186 (2015): 143–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turvey, Samuel T., ed., Holocene Extinctions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ The only Old World civilizations whose long-lost ecosystems have been studied in any depth are those of Europe and the Mediterranean, e.g. Kitchell, Kenneth F., Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z (New York: Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar; Grove, A.T. and Rackham, Oliver, The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Jashemski, Wilhelmina and Meyer, Frederick, The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Bartosiewicz, László, “A Lion's Share of Attention: Archaeozoology and the Historical Record,” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 60.1 (2009), 275–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tsahar, Ella et al. , “Distribution and Extinction of Ungulates during the Holocene of the Southern Levant,” PLOS ONE 4.4 (2009), e5316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China, esp. 15–44.

¹¹ 如小狗也. 水居；食魚. Wang, Ping and Zang, Kehe, Shuowen jiezi xinding 說文解字新丁 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2002)Google Scholar. For other otter references, see Major, John S. et al. , trans., The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 182Google Scholar.

¹² Major, “Animals and Animal Metaphors in the Huainanzi,” 146.

¹³ Lyman, R. Lee, Vertebrate Taphonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Reed, Charles, “Osteo-Archaeology,” in Science in Archaeology, by Eric Higgs and Don Brothwell (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1963), 2014–16Google Scholar.

¹⁴ The use, and size, of screen mesh has a significant effect on the types of animal remains uncovered during excavations: Quitmyer, Irvy, “What Kind of Data Are in the Back Dirt? An Experiment on the Influence of Screen Size on Optimal Data Recovery,” Archaeofauna 13 (2004), 109–29Google Scholar; Schaffer, Brian and Sanchez, Julia, “Comparison of ⅛″-and ¼″-Mesh Recovery of Controlled Samples of Small-to-Medium-Sized Mammals,” American Antiquity 59 (1994): 525–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ Grayson, Donald K., “The Effects of Sample Size on Some Derived Measures of Vertebrate Faunal Analysis,” Journal of Archaeological Science 8 (1981): 77–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lyman, R. Lee, Quantitative Paleozoology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 196CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ For data, see online appendices.

¹⁷ Smith, Andrew T. and Xie, Yan, eds., A Guide to the Mammals of China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Another useful work has been Hutchins, Michael et al. , eds., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills: Gale Group, 2003)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ This section on deer is primarily based on Geist, Valerius, Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behaviour, and Ecology (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole, 1998)Google Scholar; Hutchins, Michael et al. , eds., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia Vol. 15: Mammals IV, 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills: Gale Group, 2003), 335–98Google Scholar.

²⁰ E.g., Riley, John L., The Once and Future Great Lakes Country: An Ecological History (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2013), 14–19Google Scholar.

²¹ The forest musk deer (Moschus berezovskii) now lives only in high mountains and Siberian musk deer (M. moschiferus) is found only in the far north of the region. The remains found in the lowlands may belong to either of these, or perhaps to an extinct lowland species.

²² The earliest record we can find of people valuing the musk comes from the “Discourse on Nourishing the Body” (Yang shen lun 養身論) of Ji Kang 嵇康 (223–62 CE): https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/養生論_(嵇康).

²³ The head and pedicles (rounded furry horns from which small antlers grow on males) on some bronze vessels seem to depict a muntjac, while the rest of the animal contains fantastical elements, like wings. E.g., Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo, Zhangjiapo Xi Zhou mudi 張家坡西周墓地 (Beijing: Dabaike quanshu, 1999), 161–63Google Scholar; 高功, Gao Gong, “Long xing cheng cang, lu ming zhou ye—Shigushan Xi Zhou mudi chutu qingtongqi shangxi (er) 龍行陳倉，鹿鳴周野—石鼓山西周墓地出土青銅器賞析(二),” Shoucangjie 4 (2015)Google Scholar.

²⁴ Geist, Deer of the World, 84–85.

²⁵ Kroll, Paul W., A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese (Leiden: Brill, 2015; Pleco edition)Google Scholar. The same is true of Japanese, in which this character is pronounced “sika,” hence the English name.

²⁶ Geist, Deer of the World, 90–94.

²⁷ Hutchins et al., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia Vol. 15; Mammals 4, 367.

²⁸ Schafer, Edward H., “Cultural History of the Elaphure,” Sinologia 4 (1956): 250–74Google Scholar.

²⁹ Geist, Deer of the World, 102.

³⁰ Smith and Xie, Guide to the Mammals of China, 467; Ohtaishi, Noriyuki and Gao, Yaoting, “A Review of the Distribution of All Species of Deer (Tragulidae, Moschidae and Cervidae) in China,” Mammalian Review 20.2/3 (1990): 125–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³¹ 112 of 121 sites, about 93%.

³² For a detailed discussion of pig ecology and the nature of pig domestication, see Albarella, Umberto et al. , eds, Pigs and Humans: 10,000 Years of Interaction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

³³ Yunbing, Luo 羅運兵, Zhongguo gudai zhu lei xunhua, siyang yu yishixing shiyong 中國古代豬類馴化飼養與儀式性使用 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2012)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Photographs taken in the early twentieth century reveal that some domesticated pigs still looked quite wild: Sterling Clark, Robert and de Carle Sowerby, Arthur, Shen-Kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in North China 1908–9 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 137Google Scholar.

³⁵ Yuan, Jing and Flad, Rowan K., “Pig Domestication in Ancient China,” Antiquity 76.293 (2002): 724–32Google Scholar; Cucchi, Thomas et al. , “Early Neolithic Pig Domestication at Jiahu, Henan Province, China: Clues from Molar Shape Analyses Using Geometric Morphometric Approaches,” Journal of Archaeological Science 38.1 (2011): 11–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wang, Hua et al. , “Morphometric Analysis of Sus Remains from Neolithic Sites in the Wei River Valley, China, with Implications for Domestication,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 25.6 (2015): 877–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³⁷ Wang, Hua et al. , “Pig Domestication and Husbandry Practices in the Middle Neolithic of the Wei River Valley, Northwest China: Evidence from Linear Enamel Hypoplasia,” Journal of Archaeological Science 39.12 (2012): 3662–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pike-Tay, Anne et al. , “Combining Odontochronology, Tooth Wear Assessment, and Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH) Recording to Assess Pig Domestication in Neolithic Henan, China,” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 26.1 (2014), 68–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³⁹ Incidentally, another perissodactyl that may have inhabited the region is the tapir, which was found at Anyang, and seems also to be represented in ancient bronzes. However, Donald Harper argues that the tapir bones excavated at Anyang date to the Pleistocene, that the bronze vessels do not depict tapirs, and that there were no tapirs in China in historical times. de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard and Young, Chung Chien, On the Mammalian Remains from the Archaeological Site of Anyang (Nanking: Geological Survey of China, 1936)Google Scholar; Harper, Donald J., “The Cultural History of the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in Early China,” Early China 35 (2013): 186–204Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Linduff, Katheryn M., “A Walk on the Wild Side: Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China,” in Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse, ed. Levine, Martha, Renfrew, Colin, and Boyle, Katie (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2003), 139–62Google Scholar; Flad, Rowan, Yuan, Jing, and Li, Shuicheng, “Zooarcheological Evidence for Animal Domestication in Northwest China,” in Late Quaternary Climate Change and Human Adaptation in Arid China, ed. Madsen, David, Chen, Fa-Hu, and Gao, Xing (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), 194Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Huanran, Wen 文煥然, ed., Zhongguo lishi shiqi zhiwu yu dongwu bianqian yanjiu 中國歷史時期植物與動物變遷研究 (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1995), 234–47Google Scholar.

⁴² van Vuure, Cis, Retracing the Aurochs: History, Morphology and Ecology of an Extinct Wild Ox (Sofia: Pensoft, 2005), 213–59Google Scholar.

⁴³ Peng, Lu, Brunson, Katherine, Jing, Yuan and Zhipeng, Li, “Zooarchaeological and Genetic Evidence for the Origins of Domestic Cattle in Ancient China,” Asian Perspectives 56.1 (2017): 92–120Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Aurochs bones have been identified at the Longshan site of Zhoujiazhuang in Shanxi Province dating to 2140–1745 cal BCE. Since the mtDNA haplogroups of both domestic cattle and wild aurochs were identified at that site, we know that both animals lived in the area at the time, and may have interbred: Brunson, Katherine et al. , “New Insights into the Origins of Oracle Bone Divination: Ancient DNA from Late Neolithic Chinese Bovines,” Journal of Archaeological Science 74 (2016): 35–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Recent zooarchaeological studies on water buffalo (Bubalus sp.) remains from China and South Asia have disproven the traditional view that water buffalo were first domesticated in Neolithic China. The results from several recent genetic studies of modern domesticated buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) are not consistent with each other, placing the original center of buffalo's domestication in South Asia, Southeast Asia, or China. Dongya Yang and colleagues analyzed DNA from water buffalo remains dated to 8000–3600 cal BP from Neolithic sites in North China. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that the ancient water buffalos were an extinct species, not the direct ancestor of modern domesticated water buffalo. Liu Li 劉莉, Dongya, Yang 楊東亞, and Xingcan, Chen 陳星燦, “Zhongguo jiayang shuiniu qiyuan chutan” 中國家養水牛起源初探, Kaogu xuebao 2 (2006), 141–76Google Scholar; Yang, Dongya et al. , “Wild or Domesticated: DNA Analysis of Ancient Water Buffalo Remains from North China,” Journal of Archaeological Science 35:10 (2008): 2778–85CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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⁴⁷ Liu, Li and Chen, Xingcan, The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 108–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hutchins, Michael et al. , eds., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia Vol. 16: Mammals V, 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills: Gale Group, 2003), 20–21Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ E.g., Fong, Wen, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), 230Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ 悉率左右,以燕天子.既張我弓, 既挾我矢, 發彼小豝, 殪此大兕. “Ji ri” 吉日, Mao ode # 180. We have changed Karlgren's translation of si 兕 from “rhinoceros” to “buffalo” in accordance with Lefeuvre, Jean A., “Rhinoceros and Wild Buffaloes North of the Yellow River at the End of the Shang Dynasty: Some Remarks on the Graph and the Character 兕,” Monumenta Serica 39 (1990): 131–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bishop, Carl W., “Rhinoceros and Wild Ox in Ancient China,” The China Journal 18.6 (1933): 322–30Google Scholar; Karlgren, Bernhard, The Book of Odes (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950), 124Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ 如野牛而青. Hanyu da zidian 漢語大字典 (Wuhan: Hubei ci shu; Sichuan ci shu, 1986), 270.

⁵¹ Two other species of gazelle inhabit similar ecologies, and may have lived in the Guanzhong basin: Mongolian gazelle (Procapra gutturosa, 25–45 kg) and Przewalski's gazelle (Procapra przewalskii, 17–32 kg).

⁵² Hutchins et al., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia Vol. 15, 249–57.

⁵³ Orlando, Ludovic et al. , “Ancient DNA Analysis Reveals Woolly Rhino Evolutionary Relationships,” Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 28.3 (2003): 485–99CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Hutchins et al., Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia Vol. 16, 249.

⁵⁴ Bones identified as rhinoceros or Sumatran rhinoceros were identified at Early and Middle Neolithic Dadiwan (Gansu), Middle Neolithic Guantaoyuan and Zijing (Shaanxi), Middle Neolithic Xiawanggang (Henan), Bronze Age Erlitou (Henan), and Bronze Age Anyang (Henan).

⁵⁵ E.g., Bojun, Yang 楊伯峻, Chunqiu Zuo zhuan zhu 春秋左傳注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990), 192Google Scholar, 654 (Zhuang 13, Xuan 3).

⁵⁶ For a mostly reliable, if dated, account of the history of elephants in China, see Wen, Zhongguo lishi shiqi zhiwu yu dongwu, 185–219.

⁵⁷ Gansu sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, Qin'an Dadiwan: xinshiqi shidai yizhi fajue baogao 秦安大地灣: 新石器時代遺址發掘報告 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2006), 873. The northernmost site with clear evidence of wild elephants is Middle Neolithic period Xiawanggang, Henan, which is on the traditional border between North and South China.

⁵⁸ There is some evidence for tamed elephants in the Shang-Zhou period: bowuguan, Hubei Sheng, Li yue Zhongguo: Hubei Sheng bowuguan guancang Shang Zhou qingtongqi tezhan 禮樂中國: 湖北省博物館館藏商周青銅器特展 (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 2014), 132Google Scholar; Fiskesjö, Magnus, “Rising From Blood-Stained Fields: Royal Hunting and State Formation in Shang China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 73 (2001): 86–98Google Scholar; Knoblock, John and Riegel, Jeffrey, The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 5.151Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Turvey, Samuel T. et al. , “Holocene Survival of Late Pleistocene Megafauna in China: A Critical Review of the Evidence,” Quaternary Science Reviews 76 (2013): 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wen, Zhongguo lishi shiqi zhiwu yu dongwu, 210; Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants, 10. Although Wen and Elvin did not know the dates of the elephant tooth, the presence of wooly rhinoceros bones should have made clear that the Holocene date in the original publication was unreliable. It should be noted that this does not undermine Elvin's description of elephants disappearing as agricultural civilization spread southward.

⁶⁰ 人希見生象也，而得死象之骨，案其圖以想其生也，故諸人之所以意想者皆謂之象也. Xianqian, Wang 王先謙, Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 20.148Google Scholar.

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⁶² Their remains have been identified at Early Neolithic Cishan (Hebei), Middle Neolithic Dadiwan and Xishanping (Gansu), Beishouling (Shaanxi), and Huangpo, Xiawanggang, and Xipo (Henan), and late Shang period Huixian Beicun (Shaanxi) and Anyang (Henan).

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⁶⁵ Larger animals have been disproportionately extinguished globally over the Holocene: Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A., “The Ghosts of Mammals Past: Biological and Geographical Patterns of Global Mammalian Extinction across the Holocene,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 366.1577 (2011): 2564–76CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. This seems to reflect the fact that it is easier for smaller animals to adapt to environmental change.

⁶⁶ The term shu 鼠 was used in early texts to refer to various small rodents.

⁶⁷ Smith and Xie, Guide to the Mammals of China, 358–63.

⁶⁸ Menzies, Nicholas, Science and Civilisation in China 6.3: Forestry, ed. Needham, Joseph (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ These include Swinhoe's striped squirrel (Tamiops swinhoei), Pallas's squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus), Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) and Siberian flying squirrel (Pteromys volans).

⁷⁰ The Daurian pika (Ochotona dauurica) inhabits the dry region to the northwest of the study region, but has also been found in the Qinling, where the most common species is the Qinling pika (O. syrinx). The taxonomy of these species is still being revised: Lissovsky, Andrey A., “Taxonomic Revision of Pikas Ochotona (Lagomorpha, Mammalia) at the Species Level,” Mammalia 78.2 (2014): 199–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The identification of pikas at the Neolithic site of Banpo (in Xi'an) is probably a mistake.

⁷¹ E.g., Smith, Andrew T. and Foggin, J. Marc, “The Plateau Pika (Ochotona curzoniae) is a Keystone Species for Biodiversity on the Tibetan Plateau,” Animal Conservation 2 (1999), 235–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁷³ Asian gray shrew (Crocidura attenuata), Asian lesser white-toothed shrew (Crocidura shantungensis), Chinese mole shrew (Anourosorex squamipes) and De Winton's shrew (Chodsigoa hypsibia).

⁷⁴ Large mole (Mogera robusta) and short-faced mole (Scaptochirus moschatus).

⁷⁵ Yellow throated (Martes flavigula) and possibly beech (M. foina) martens.

⁷⁶ Steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii) probably inhabited the region, and ermine (M. erminea) and mountain weasel (M. altaica) were probably found on its northern edges.

⁷⁷ Major et al., Huainanzi, 582; Ning, He 何寧, ed., Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1998), 15.1046Google Scholar.

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⁷⁹ Such as the large Indian civet (Viverra zibetha) and small Indian civet (Viverricula indica).

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⁸¹ Most notably the Asian golden cat (Catapuma temminicki): Smith and Xie, Guide to the Mammals of China, 392.

⁸² About 6% of sites from this period contained leopard remains and 16% had tiger remains.

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⁸⁴ Smith and Xie, A Guide to the Mammals of China, 402.

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⁸⁶ Smith and Xie, Guide to the Mammals of China, 416–21.

⁸⁷ Dhole have been found at Early Neolithic Dadiwan (Gansu), Middle Neolithic Gongjiawan, Jiangzhai, and Wuzhuangguoliang (Shaanxi), Late Neolithic Kangjia and Longgangcun (Shaanxi), and Shang/Zhou period Zhenjiangying (Beijing)

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⁹¹ As in North America, where they once lived as far south as Mexico.

⁹² On pandas in Chinese culture, see Harper, “The Cultural History of the Giant Panda.”

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⁹⁷ Wen, Zhongguo lishi shiqi zhiwu yu dongwu.

⁹⁸ Cervus hortulorum in many excavation reports.