Alice Yao has been conducting different archaeological projects in the Dian Lake Region of southwest China for several years. After completing a regional survey in the Dian basin she has now begun field excavations at several Bronze Age and Han imperial settlements in this region. This current research incorporates archaeobotanical, land use, and paleoenvironmental data to address the transformation of frontier landscapes, examining especially how different ecologies, botanicals, and climates shaped imperial workings of geography and territoriality as the powerful Dian Kingdom emerged out of a prior Bronze Age polity.