Dairy-millet synergy underpinned subsistence adaptation to Inner Asian mountains from 2900 BCE

Dairy and millets have long sustained agropastoral societies in Inner Asia. While dairy pastoralism emerged across the eastern Eurasian steppe from 3000 BCE, the timing and process of its introduction into the Inner Asian mountains and integration with millet agriculture remains unclear due to the gaps in archaeological record. Here we present a long-term record of dairy–millet integration in the Inner Asian mountains, based on chronological, palaeoproteomic, and stable isotope analyses of the Narensu cemetery (3050 BCE–1430 CE) in Xinjiang. This evidence reveals the earliest known convergence of Eastern–Western agropastoral technologies from 2900 BCE. Horse milk was widely consumed by 840 BCE, followed by an intensification of agrarian product consumption during the Han–Xiongnu period. Combined with cross-regional evidence, we argue that the synergy of dairy pastoralism and millet shaped a sustainable mixed economy, underpinning resilient subsistence strategies and long-term socio-ecological adaptation in Xinjiang’s diverse environments. Dairy pastoralism and millet agriculture formed a mixed agropastoral economy in the Inner Asian mountains from as early as 2900 BCE, enabling subsistence and socio-ecological adaptation in Xinjiang, based on chronological, palaeoproteomic, and stable-isotope analyses of the Narensu cemetery.