Summer monsoon variability drove Mu Us Desert greening and Neolithic societal change in northern China

The evolution of deserts and human societies is fundamentally interlinked. Monsoon marginal desert greening histories are particularly important in human development, yet interpreting environmental variability from desert sediments remains challenging. Here, we address this through a high-resolution chronological study of monsoon marginal desert strata. We show that Mu Us Desert deposits consist solely of warm-phase sediments and preserve clear orbital cycles of monsoon-driven greening and dune stabilization. This provides geomorphological evidence that monsoon variations and desert evolution were jointly controlled by both high- and low-latitude processes. We further show that two major events in human history in East Asia are tied closely to the changing Mu Us: 1) The onset of widespread pastoralism in northern China at ~4.5 ka leads to desert landscape stabilization, contrasting with human-induced erosion further south; 2) The rise and fall of Shimao City, the largest Neolithic city in East Asia, is directly linked to desert hydroclimate.