Recently, a study jointly completed by the environmental archaeology team of Lanzhou University, Northwest A&F University, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Gansu Provincial Institute of cultural relics and Archaeology and Natural History Museum, etc., extended the northern boundary of bison distribution from about 29 degrees north latitude to 34 degrees north latitude, indicating that the tropical bovid family had migrated northward to the northeast of the Tibetan Plateau.

Scene restoration of the hunting of gaur and Sumatran rhinoceros by ancestors of Majiayao culture in northeastern Tibetan Plateau 5200 years ago.

The history of prehistoric human migration to the Tibetan Plateau and the way of the utilization of animal and plant resources are hot issues of academic concern.

The research is a case study of interdisciplinary cooperation in genetics (ancient DNA), archaeology, paleoclimatology, and geography. It is of great academic value to understand the interaction between the geographical pattern of wildlife, climate change, and human activities in the middle and late Holocene.

The results entitled "Ancient genomes reveal tropical bovid species in the Tibetan Plateau contributed to the prevalence of hunting game until the late Neolithic" was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America(PNAS), and selected as the introductory article in that issue. The research work was supported by the Youth Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the key project of international scientific and technological cooperation, and the open project of the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution.