Part 1: Introduction <br>1-Archaeology at the Margins: Exploring the Late Paleolithic to Neolithic Transition in China's Arid West (David B. Madsen, Chen Fa-Hu, and Gao Xing)<br>Part 2: Climate Change<br>2-Responses of Chinese Desert Lakes to Climate Instability During the Past 45,000 Years. (Bernd Wünnemann, Kai Hartmann, Manon Janssen, and Zhang Hucai Zhang) <br>3-Post-glacial Climate Variability and Drought Events in the Monsoon Transition Zone of Western China (Chen Fa-Hu, Cheng Bo, Zhao Hui, Fan Yu-Xin, David B. Madsen, and Jin Ming)<br>4-Vegetation Evolution in Arid China During Marine Isotope Stages 3 and 2 (~65-11 ka) (Ulrike Herzschuh and Liu Xingqi) <br>5-Holocene Vegetation and Climate Changes from Fossil Pollen Records in Arid and Semi-arid China (Zhao Yan, Yu Zicheng, Chen Fa-Hu, and An Chengbang)<br>Part 3: Theoretical Perspectives<br>6-Variation in Late Quaternary Central Asian Climates and the Nature of Human Response (David B. Madsen and Robert G. Elston)<br>7-The transition to Agriculture in Northwestern China (Robert L. Bettinger, Loukas Barton, Peter J. Richerson, Robert Boyd, Wang Hui, and Choi Won)<br>Part 4: Regional and Chronological Perspectives<br>8-Late Pleistocene Climate Change and Paleolithic Cultural Evolution in Northern China: Implications from the Last Glacial Maximum (Loukas Barton, P. Jeffery Brantingham, and Ji Duxue)<br>9-A Short Chronology for the Peopling of the Tibetan Plateau (P. Jeffrey Brantingham, Gao Xing, John W. Olsen, Ma Haizhou, David Rhode, Zhang Haiying, and David B. Madsen) <br>10--Modeling the Neolithic on the Tibetan Plateau (Mark S. Aldenderfer)<br>11-Zooarchaeological Evidence for Animal Domestication in Northwest China (Rowan K. Flad, Yuan Jing, and Li Shuicheng)<br>12-Yaks, Yak dung, and Prehistoric Human Habitation of the Tibetan Plateau (David Rhode, David B. Madsen, P. Jeffrey Brantingham, and Tsultrim Dargye)<br>Part 5: Summary and Integration<br>13-Changing Views of late Quaternary Human Adaptation in Arid China (David B. Madsen, Chen Fa-Hu, and Gao Xing)