West Liao River — Erdaojingzi Lineage

The Erdaojingzi assemblage sits at a cinematic crossroads of riverine plains and rolling steppe at the western edge of the Liao River basin. Archaeological deposits at Erdaojingzi (Chifeng, Inner Mongolia) date between c. 2050 and 1517 BCE and are usually placed within the Late Neolithic to early Bronze Age sequence of the West Liao River region. Material culture—millet-dominated agriculture, ceramic forms that continue long-standing regional traditions, and burial practices with pit graves—ties these communities to the broader Late Neolithic West Liao River horizon.

Archaeological data indicate continuity of local settlement patterns alongside increasing regional connections: exchange of raw materials, stylistic influences in pottery, and the gradual appearance of metallurgical objects in some contemporaneous sites across Northeast China. Limited evidence suggests a community adapted to mixed farming and seasonal mobility, exploiting riverine resources and nearby uplands. Environmental changes and shifting social networks during this period likely shaped local lifeways, with Erdaojingzi representing one node in a network of Late Neolithic settlements.

Caution is necessary: the genetic dataset for this specific label comprises only three individuals. As a result, reconstructions of population origins and movements remain provisional and should be integrated with ongoing excavations and broader regional aDNA studies.

The ancient DNA signal from the Erdaojingzi samples is tantalizing but preliminary: only three individuals inform the genetic profile assigned to China_WLR_LN. Paternal markers include haplogroups NO (1) and O (1). Haplogroup NO is a major East Eurasian branch that ultimately splits into lineages common across northern and eastern Eurasia, while haplogroup O is widespread among East and Southeast Asian populations. Together, these Y-chromosome calls are consistent with continuity of northern East Asian paternal ancestry in the West Liao River corridor.

Mitochondrial diversity across the three samples includes broad haplogroup N (1), the A22 subclade (1), and B (1). Haplogroup N is a deep maternal lineage found broadly across Eurasia; A22 and B are lineages with strong ties to East and Northeast Asia and, in later millennia, to populations farther afield. This mix suggests maternal connections that span local Northeast Asian variation and links into wider East Asian maternal pools.

Crucially, with n=3 the dataset is small. Population-level inferences—such as continuity, admixture proportions, or demographic shifts—remain highly tentative. Archaeological context helps situate these genetic snapshots, but larger and temporally broader sampling is required to resolve micro-scale population dynamics in the West Liao River basin.