Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene Population Aggregation and Cultural Interaction on the Tibetan Plateau: A Testable Hypothesis for Human Mobility, Ritual Formation, and Post-Glacial Dispersal

The Tibetan Plateau is increasingly recognised as an important region in the long-term history of human adaptation, mobility, and population interaction in Asia. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that archaic hominins occupied parts of the plateau by at least 160,000 years ago and that modern humans were present in the interior from approximately 40,000–30,000 years ago, while ancient-DNA research has revealed substantial population structure and interaction on the plateau during the later Holocene. A major chronological gap remains, however, between the earliest evidence for human presence and the currently available ancient genomic record. This paper proposes a testable hypothesis concerning the possible role of the western Tibetan Plateau during the Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene transition. Rather than treating the plateau solely as an isolated ecological refuge, the paper considers whether parts of western Tibet may have functioned as a temporary, possibly seasonal, population aggregation and interaction zone during periods of climatic and hydrological instability. Under this model, environmental change redistributed the spatial distribution of key resources; populations responded by adjusting their mobility, repeatedly converging at newly favourable localities, and interacting before dispersing during the later Holocene. The model generates opportunities for demographic mixing, technological exchange, and the development or transformation of ritual practices, without requiring permanent high-density settlement or any single direction of transmission. The hypothesis does not claim that civilisation originated on the Tibetan Plateau. Three competing models are considered: transmission from West Asia towards the Tibetan Plateau; transmission from the Tibetan Plateau towards West Asia; and a third model involving broader interaction networks and/or independent cultural convergence. Archaeological chronology, palaeoenvironmental records, site occupation patterns, lithic technology, raw-material provenance, ancient DNA, and ritual evidence are assessed against a four-level classification (direct, compatible, suggestive, untested) to identify the evidence capable of distinguishing between these models. The paper presents an interdisciplinary research framework rather than a claim of historical proof. Its central contribution is to formulate a specific, falsifiable hypothesis — the seasonal aggregation-zone hypothesis — and to identify the archaeological and genetic evidence that would be required to support, modify, or reject it.