4,000 - 5,000 years ago, domesticated plants and animals, such as wheat, barley, cattle, and sheep, were introduced to northwestern China from West Asia and North Africa. Did these “exotic imports” arrive with migrating populations, or were they merely the result of technological diffusion? A team led by Fu Qiaomei at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with multiple institutions, sequenced the ancient genomes of 149 individuals dating from roughly 4,700 to 3,000 years ago across 11 sites in Gansu. For the first time, their findings reveal that the introduction of cereal agriculture and bronzeware into Gansu was not accompanied by direct foreign migration. Instead, it likely occurred primarily through cultural and technological diffusion or indirect population contacts.