The practice and perspective of how the division of geographical sciences of the National Natural Science Foundation of China can support China’s archaeological science

Abstract

<p indent=0mm>Under the guidance of President Xi Jinping’s strategic thinking about how to establish the archaeological science with Chinese characters, style and fashion, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) attaches great importance to archaeological science, and seeks to continuously deepen the reform of its fundamental management system. A new round of disciplines’ application code optimization was launched in April 2020. Under the first-level discipline application code “science of geography (D01)”, a new second-level code “evolution of geographic environments and civilization (D0107)” was established to promote the intersection of the sciences of geography and archaeology, and to further deepen and integrate research on “human-environment relationships”. This paper analyzes the development and difficulties of the archaeological science discipline of the NSFC based on statistics on archaeological science projects funded by the NSFC from 2011 to 2021. From the keyword co-occurrence map and the distribution of research areas, it can be seen that, with NSFC funding, the combination of archaeological science and geographical science continues to deepen, and advances have been made in research theories, research methods and research areas. These advances highlight the fact that with NSFC funding, archaeological science research has become focused more on the relationship between changes in the geographical environment and the evolution of human civilization, and also become clarifies more on the processes, laws and mechanism of the interactions between humans and the environment. For example, through analyzing the research hotspots of archaeological science projects funded by the NSFC in the past <sc>11 years</sc> (from 2011 to 2021), we found that environmental archaeology and archaeological science are the most prominent nodes in the keyword co-occurrence map, indicating that the projects funded by the NSFC fall mainly within environmental archaeology and archaeological science. However, although environmental archaeology is an important part of archaeological science, the NSFC has focused more on environmental archaeology. This is related to the stronger cross-cutting nature of environmental archaeology, and it demonstrates that with NSFC funding, archaeological science is moving to a more interdisciplinary direction. Moreover, by analyzing the distribution of the research areas of archaeological science projects funded by the NSFC in the past <sc>11 years,</sc> it can be seen that, on a large regional scale, the focus has moved from the original “cultural relics archaeological” provinces such as Shaanxi and Henan, to the frontier areas, with particular emphasis on the study of human-environment relationships in the unique ecological environment of the Tibetan Plateau. The newly-established D0107 code can make up for the lack of applications for archaeological science projects from the NSFC, and established an exclusive subject area for applications for archaeological science projects. Finally, we analyze the future role of the NSFC in promoting archaeological science, and propose that the development of the science of geography is conducive to improving and enriching the theory and methodology of archaeological science. In particular, combination with the science of geography will contribute to the transformation of the research paradigm of archaeological science. With the support of the division of geographical sciences of the NSFC, Chinese archaeological science research community will play a more active role in extending the historical axis, strengthening the historical credibility, enriching historical connotation, and revitalizing the historical scenes in China.