The working group was initially small, composed of Robert Bettinger, Robert Elston, David Madsen, and our colleagues from the Ningxia Archaeological Institute, Yinchuan, China. As the scope of the project has grown, so too has the size of the group, the research interests of its members, and the number of cooperating Chinese academic institutions including: the National Laboratory of West China's Environmental Systems – Lanzhou, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Saline Lakes - Xining, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology – Beijing. The principal American and Chinese personnel at present are:

An Chengbang - Environment and Resources College, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China; Research interests: Holocene environmental change and cultural evolution in China's Western Loess Plateau. >>

Loukas Barton - Department of Anthropology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA 95616; Research interests: The transition to agriculture; agricultural intensification; human adaptation in marginal environments; migration and colonization in northern Asia; social learning and demographic change; paleoethnobotany; co-evolutionary models of domestication; agricultural economics and ethnography. >>

Robert L. Bettinger - Department of Anthropology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA 95616; Research interests: Hunter-gatherers, origins of agriculture, prehistory of western China; prehistory and ethnography of western North America; world colonizations; quantitative methods; evolutionary theory. >>

P. Jeffrey Brantingham - Department of Anthropology, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Research interests: Behavioral ecology, evolution of modern human behavior, mobility and foraging strategies, social organization and complex symbolic behavior, paleolithic stone technologies, agent-based simulation modeling,, prehistory of northern Asia including China and Mongolia and, particularly, the hunter-gatherer colonization of the Tibetan Plateau in the context of late Pleistocene climatic and environmental change. >>

Chen Fahu - Director of the National Laboratory of West China's Environmental Systems and Dean of the College of Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China. >>

Robert G. Elston - Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada-Reno, Post Office Box 500, Silver City, NV 89428; Research interests: Prehistory of Northeast Asia (especially Late Paleolithic-early Neolithic of northern China); Prehistory of western North America (esp. Great Basin and Sierra Nevada); lithic technology; modeling behavioral ecology of prehistoric hunter-gatherers; geoarchaeology.

Gao Xing - Vice Director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Ma Haizhou - Director of the Institute of Saline Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, Qinghai, China.

David B. Madsen - Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512, and Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712; Research interests: Quaternary paleoecology; palynology; evolution of desert environments; Great Basin Pleistocene/Holocene environmental change; late Pleistocene environmental change in Asia; human adaptation in desert environments; prehistory of western China; prehistory of western North America; peopling of North America; hunter/gatherer adaptive strategies. >>

Charles G. Oviatt - Department of Geology, Kansas State University, 108 Thompson Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-3201; Research interests: Quaternary stratigraphy; Lake Bonneville and pre-history of Great Salt Lake; Great Basin Pleistocene/Holocene environmental change as recorded in deposits and landforms of paleolakes; late Pleistocene environmental change in Asia. >>

David E. Rhode - Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512; Research interests: Human ecology in arid lands; Late Quaternary paleoecology and vegetation history; Ethnobiology and paleoethnobotany; Prehistory of western North America; pastoralism in western and central Asia; causes of dietary intensification including agricultural origins; History of western North America; Historical ecology and use of paleoecological information in restoration and sustainability; application of evolutionary ecological models to prehistory. >>