Neolithic-to-pre-Han settlement niche construction across China reveals a transition from passive adaptation to active environmental management

Niche Construction Theory (NCT) posits that humans reshape evolutionary pathways by transforming environments, yet archeological applications remain limited to single regions or static analyses. Here we compile radiocarbon data from 1,369 prehistoric sites spanning the Neolithic to pre‑Han periods across China and integrate multi-dimensional environmental variables to develop a spatio-temporal geographically weighted regression forest (ST-GWRF) model. We identify three response types of environmental effects on settlement siting: monotonic responses, threshold-triggered declines, and negligible marginal effects. Environmental factor importance exhibits pronounced spatio-temporal heterogeneity. Niche centrality evolves from multicentric to concentric patterns, while niche breadth expands continuously. These dynamics suggest a shift toward conditions consistent with active environmental management, inferred from changes in settlement-environment relationships, as technological advancement may have progressively enabled humans to overcome environmental constraints and occupy diverse ecological niches. Our findings illuminate the long-term mechanisms of human-environment co-evolution and provide historically grounded insights for sustainable development in the Anthropocene.