Abstract: The mild climate and resource conditions in the southwestern border of China provided an ideal place for the survival and reproduction of prehistoric humans. The southwestern border area also has abundant copper and salt resources. In the middle and late Neolithic period, humans began to widely use salt. The birth of civilization as well as the country was accompanied by the Bronze Age, so the southwestern border area is actually a breeding ground for civilization. The distribution and evolution characteristics of representative sites from the Paleolithic era to the Neolithic era, as well as from the Neolithic era to the early Bronze Age, indicate a spontaneous trend of human migration towards areas with abundant salt and copper resources. This trend fills the logical gap between the sudden widespread use of salt by humans during the Neolithic Revolution and the successful mastery of copper mining and smelting techniques in the early Bronze Age. The active use of salt and the identification and utilization of copper and natural copper by humans during the Neolithic Revolution should also be an important part of the revolution.

Key words: copper salt resources, Southwest Frontier, prehistoric culture, distribution and transfer trends