Research Interests

Archaeology of early East Asia and Central Asia, early agricultural management strategies and social organizations, ancient foodways and paleodiets, prehistoric food globalization, domestication and agricultural origin, landscape achaeology.

Education

Ph.D. (Washington University in St. Louis, 2003)

Professional Experience

Nov.2023-Present  Assistant Researcher in the Institute of Archaeology, CASS

Nov.2024-Present  Chinese School of Classical Studies at Athens

Selected Programs

The spread of foxtail and broomcorn millet (setaria italica and panicum miliaceum) in Central and Western Eurasia and its social significance (NSSFC) (2024-2029)

Agricultural Labor Organizations and Management (NSF-DDRIG) (2020-2023)

Selected Publications

Sun Y. F., Sun Y. G.*, Liu X.* (2026).  Land tenure and multi-seasonal sequential harvesting revealed by archaeobotanical and isotopic studies at Erdaojingzi, a Bronze Age site in Northeast China. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 71:105665.

Sun, Y., Jia, X.*, Reid, R. E., Sun, Y., & Liu, X.* (2025). Millet cultivation strategies and changing agropastoral economies in ancient Chifeng, northeast China, 4000–1800 BP. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 17(7), 145.

Ritchey, M. M., Tang, L., Vaiglova, P., Lu, H., Sun, Y., Frachetti, M. D., & Liu, X. (2024). Into thin air: prehistoric intensive crop management in high altitude western Tibet. Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, 3, 1398209.

Sun, Y. *, Ritchey, M., Zhong, H., Tang, L., Sergusheva, E., Shi, T., Song, J., Li, H., Dong, G., Liu, X*. (2024) Grain size variations of broomcorn and foxtail millet (Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica) across Eastern Eurasia from the late 4th to the final 1st millennium BCE. Antiquity.

Li, H. , Sun, Y. (co-first author), Yang, Y., Cui, Y., Ren, L., Li, H., ..., Dong, G. *, Liu, X*. (2022). Water and soil management strategies and the introduction of wheat and barley to northern China: an isotopic analysis of cultivation on the Loess Plateau.  Antiquity, 1-17.

Tian, D., Sun, Y. (co-first author), Ritchey, M., Xi, T., Ren, M., Ma, J., Wang, J., Zhao, Z., Ling, X. *, Liu, X*. (2022) Varying cultivation strategies in eastern Tianshan corresponded to growing pastoral lifeways between 1300 BCE and 300 CE. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10:966366.

Ritchey, M. M., Sun, Y., Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, G., Shoda, S., Pokharia, A. K., Spate, M., ... & Liu, X*. (2021). The wind that shakes the barley: the role of East Asian cuisines on barley grain size. World Archaeology, 53(2), 287-304. 

Wang, X., Zhang, B., Sun, Y., Ingman, T., Eisenmann, S., Lucas, M., Ilgner, J., Wu, G., le Roux, P., Wu, X., Fan, A.*, Roberts, P.*, Stockhammer, P*. (2023) Isotopic and proteomic evidence for communal stability at Pre-Pottery Neolithic Jericho in the Southern Levant. Scientific Reports, 13: 16360.

Zhang, B. S., Wu, X. T*., Sun, Y. F., Ritchey, M., Fan, A. C., Zhang, Y. Y., ... & Song, Y. B. (2021). Complex raw materials and the supply system: Mineralogical and geochemical study of the jade artefacts of the Longshan Culture (2400–2000 BCE) from Sujiacun site in coastal Shandong, China. Archaeometry, 63(1), 1-18.