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100 Years of Archaeological Research in China (1921-2021): A Space-Based Perspective

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2022) | Viewed by 9362

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lei Luo

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Guest Editor
1. Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100864, China
2. International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the Auspices of UNESCO, Beijing 100094, China
Interests: remote sensing; GIS; space archaeology; machine learning in archaeology; heritage conservation and sustainability; historical geography; big Earth data
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Lijun Yu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Interests: remote sensing for archaeology; archaeological feature detection; GIS-based archaeological predictive modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Jianguo Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100710, China
Interests: digital archaeology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Hui Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Archaeological Science, Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Interests: neolithic–bronze age archaeology; silk road archaeology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Hui Fang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Cultural Heritage, School of History and Culture, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
Interests: archaeology of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties; archaeological theory and history of archaeology; cultural heritage protection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Gang Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Museum of China, Beijing 100006, China
Interests: aerial archaeology; remote sensing survey of large archaeological sites and mining and smelting sites
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Hai Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Interests: Chinese neolithic archaeology; landscape archaeology; GIS in archaeology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jie He

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Interests: spatial humanities and digital humanities; landscape archaeology and cultural landscape heritage; big data in environmental behavior; geodesign, green infrastructure and leisure activities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Shaohua Wang

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Interests: digital cultural heritage; remote sensing archaeology; smart museum; cultural big data
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ruixia Yang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Interests: digital environmental archaeology; remote sensing for archaeology and heritage conservation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Peng Lu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Geography, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou 450052, China
Interests: digital archaeology; environmental archaeology; settlement archaeology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Zhe Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Mongolian Studies, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China
Interests: archaeological remote sensing; cultural heritages digital protection; landscape archaeology; archaeological GIS; historical GIS; synthetic aperture radar signal processing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In 1921, China’s first official archaeological excavation campaign was carried out at Yangshao village of today’s Sanmenxia city, in the Henan Province, marking the birth of modern Chinese Archaeology. The discovery of Yangshao has confirmed that there was a very developed painted-pottery culture in Neolithic China. Forty years later, the first remote sensing-based archaeological survey in China was conducted in Sanmenxia too. In this pioneering survey, Chinese archaeologists and remote sensing experts used aerial photographs to detect and map the distribution of ancient sites and tombs around the areas planned for the construction of the Sanmenxia Reservior. After that, spatial information technologies, such as  remote sensing and GIS, have played an important role in discovering, monitoring, mapping and protecting many important archaeological sites and cultural heritages in China.

Over the past 100 years, we have witnessed the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous expansion of the applications of spatial information techniques to address a wide range of archaeological issues. We would like to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chinese Archaeology by publishing this Special Issue to provide overviews and achievements of archaeological research in China from a space-based perspective. This Special Issue will consist of a large set of domestic contributions for the major fields in Chinese Archaeology as pertinent to space-based solutions to archaeological purposes. We welcome contributions that can synthesize the current state of knowledge, summarize existing issues and challenges, and provide new insights for future research and development in a certain field of archaeology in China using space information technologies. Submissions covering a wide range of space and time are mostly encouraged.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Land.

Dr. Lei Luo
Dr. Lijun Yu
Prof. Jianguo Liu
Prof. Dr. Hui Wang
Prof. Hui Fang
Prof. Dr. Gang Li
Dr. Hai Zhang
Dr. Jie He
Dr. Shaohua Wang
Dr. Ruixia Yang
Dr. Peng Lu
Dr. Zhe Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • spatial information technology
  • remote sensing
  • GIS
  • geophysical prospecting and acoustic sensing
  • landscape archaeology
  • geoarchaeology
  • environmental archaeology
  • settlement archaeology
  • Silk Road
  • Great Wall and Grand Canal of China
  • Chinese Neolithic and Bronze Age
  • Chinese historical periods
  • burial geomancy and Fengshui
  • cultural heritage protection and sustainability
  • big data
  • machine learning

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 8459 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Influence Ranges of Neolithic-Bronze Age Cities in the Songshan Mountain Region of Central China Based on GIS Spatial Analysis
by Yan Tian, Panpan Chen, Peng Lu, He Yang, Shugang Yang, Li Zhang, Qingli Wei, Xiangli Zhao, Lanbo Guo, Zhen Wang and Rongji Luo
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(22), 5631; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14225631 - 8 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1235
Abstract
Exploring the influence range of early cities is significant for understanding the mechanisms behind ancient settlement systems and human-environment interactions. Due to a lack of effective research methods, the evolution processes and impact mechanisms of the influence ranges of prehistoric cities are still [...] Read more.
Exploring the influence range of early cities is significant for understanding the mechanisms behind ancient settlement systems and human-environment interactions. Due to a lack of effective research methods, the evolution processes and impact mechanisms of the influence ranges of prehistoric cities are still ambiguous. In this study, we chose the Songshan Mountain region for research, which witnessed the origin and development of Chinese civilization. Using GIS spatial analyses such as the ‘average nearest neighbor’ and ‘Thiessen polygon’, we explored the spatial-temporal distributions and influence ranges of Neolithic-Bronze Age cities in the region. The roles of human culture and the natural environment in the process were also investigated. The results indicated that the spatial distributions of early cities were random during the Yangshao (7000–5000 BP) and Longshan (5000–4000 BP) cultures. During the Erlitou culture (3800–3500 BP) and Shang Dynasty (3600–3046 BP), the spatial distributions changed into dispersed models. During the Zhou Dynasty (3046–2256 BP), the spatial distribution model was random again. Correspondingly, the influence range of early cities during the Erlitou culture is the largest, followed by those of the Longshan culture, Yangshao culture, Shang Dynasty, and Zhou Dynasty. This is different from the conventional view that the ancient city’s influence range continuously expands as time advances. Both the natural environment and human culture are believed to impact this evolutional process. Specifically, the Holocene climate variation and the consequent cyclic river downcutting and silting affect the city site selection and thus the spatial-temporal distribution and influence range of early cities. The enfeoffment system occurring during the Erlitou culture should also have played a vital role in this evolution. In general, the natural environment is more important for the spatial distribution and influence range of early cities during Yangshao, Longshan, and Erlitou cultures, while human culture represented by the enfeoffment system plays a dominant role during Shang and Zhou Dynasties when the natural environment is relatively stable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 100 Years of Archaeological Research in China (1921-2021): A Space-Based Perspective)
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21 pages, 22664 KiB  
Article
Automatic Mapping of Karez in Turpan Basin Based on Google Earth Images and the YOLOv5 Model
by Qian Li, Huadong Guo, Lei Luo and Xinyuan Wang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(14), 3318; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14143318 - 10 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2264
Abstract
As a large-scale irrigation and water conservancy project in ancient times, karez are common in Central Asia and arid regions with a history of thousands of years. Turpan, which is located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has the most extensive and concentrated [...] Read more.
As a large-scale irrigation and water conservancy project in ancient times, karez are common in Central Asia and arid regions with a history of thousands of years. Turpan, which is located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has the most extensive and concentrated distribution of karez shafts in China. There are tens of thousands of shafts, some of which are in use and are living cultural heritage. According to radiocarbon (14C) dating, some karezs are over 600 years old. The karez is of great significance to the research on geology, hydrology, oasis, climate change, and development history of karez in Turpan. With the development of the population, arable land, industrialization, and urbanization, karez systems are facing the risk of abandonment. Detailed karez distribution mapping or dynamic monitoring data are important for their management or analysis; although there are related methods, due to Turpan’s large desert and “Gobi” environments, field surveys are time- and energy-consuming, and some areas are difficult to access. Precise shaft locations and distribution maps are scarce and often lack georeferencing. The distribution and preservation of karez have not yet been fully grasped. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5) in automatically detecting karez in high-resolution images of the Turpan region. We propose post-processing steps to reduce the false karez identified by YOLOv5. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using YOLOv5 and post-processing techniques to detect karez automatically, and the detected results are sufficient to capture the linear alignment of karez. Target detection based on YOLOv5 and post-processing can greatly improve automatic shaft identification and is therefore useful for the fine mapping of karez. We also applied this method in Shanshan County (for which no detailed mapping data on karez has been obtained before) and successfully detected some karez that had not been archived before. The number of shafts in Turpan is 82,493. Through DBSCAN clustering, it was identified which karez line belonged to which shaft; the number of sections of karez that have been used is 5057, which have a total length of 2387.2 km. The karez line obtained was overlaid with the crop-land data, and the positional relationship between the karez line and the crop land was analyzed. The cultivated area is basically surrounded by karez. Our method can potentially be applied to construct an inventory for all karez shafts globally. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 100 Years of Archaeological Research in China (1921-2021): A Space-Based Perspective)
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24 pages, 4566 KiB  
Article
New Archaeological Discoveries Based on Spatial Information Technology and Cultural Analysis: Taking the Study of the Spatial Relationship between Ancient Chinese Capitals and the Natural Environment as an Example
by Siliang Chen, Xinyue Xu, Kaiyu Sun, Yue Dong, Mengzhe Yu, Qingwu Hu and Jiangbo Gong
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(14), 3298; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14143298 - 8 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1812
Abstract
How to combine science and technology with the humanities in the research on ancient cities to reveal ancient peoples’ urban planning thoughts is worthy of in-depth study. The capitals of the Western Han dynasty as well as the Sui and Tang dynasties were [...] Read more.
How to combine science and technology with the humanities in the research on ancient cities to reveal ancient peoples’ urban planning thoughts is worthy of in-depth study. The capitals of the Western Han dynasty as well as the Sui and Tang dynasties were some of the greatest cities in the world at the time. This paper takes them as its subjects and puts forward a method to study the spatial relationship between ancient cities and the natural environment by combining spatial information technology and cultural analysis. Firstly, satellite images, elevation maps, urban ichnographies, and literature materials were collected and sorted to deeply understand the cultural thoughts involved in ancient urban planning; based on this, key element points were marked and rechecked on the spot, and the above drawings were accurately superimposed by GIS technology to form a geographic information base that integrated multisource information. Then, Python was used to construct a “decision model of spatial relationship between urban elements and natural elements”, and rules as well as parameters were set through man–machine collaboration. The decision model was used to test the geographic information base, and the information of strong correlations between urban objects and natural objects was outputted. The drawings were exported after screening, and a visual expression was realized with Illustrator software. The research results indicated that this analysis method was feasible, effective, and easy to promote. The new archaeological discoveries included eight important line segments with a 9:6 proportional relationship (which represents the balance of Yin and Yang) and two important line segments with a 9:5 proportional relationship (which represents the supreme imperial power) in the capitals of the Western Han dynasty as well as the Sui and Tang dynasties, and 16 contraposition lines in a positive direction or oblique 45° direction (which reflects the close relationship between urban elements and natural elements). We consider that the two capitals were intentionally closely related to natural environments such as mountain peaks and valley entrances in the planning stage, and that proportions and scales with profound humanistic meaning were selected. The capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties was specially aligned with the capital of the Western Han dynasty in space. These characteristics embody ancient Chinese Confucian cultural thoughts such as the “integration of yang and yin”, “harmony between nature and humans”, the “supremacy of emperors”, and the “use of numbers and shapes to convey meaning”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 100 Years of Archaeological Research in China (1921-2021): A Space-Based Perspective)
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Graphical abstract

25 pages, 12260 KiB  
Article
How Can We Understand the Past from Now On? Three-Dimensional Modelling and Landscape Reconstruction of the Shuanghuaishu Site in the Central Plains of China
by Guolong Chen, Ruixia Yang, Peng Lu, Panpan Chen, Wanfa Gu, Xu Wang, Yayi Hu and Jiqin Zhang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(5), 1233; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051233 - 2 Mar 2022
Viewed by 2540
Abstract
The Shuanghuaishu (SHS) site in China is one of the 100 most important archaeological discoveries over the past 100 years; its historical heritage can be traced directly back 5300 years. Understanding the early landscape of the site would provide important information about the [...] Read more.
The Shuanghuaishu (SHS) site in China is one of the 100 most important archaeological discoveries over the past 100 years; its historical heritage can be traced directly back 5300 years. Understanding the early landscape of the site would provide important information about the origin of Chinese civilization. The SHS site is buried and surface traces are difficult to see; therefore, we attempted to reconstruct the early landscape of the site based on a current surface landscape model and environmental archaeological analysis. We created a modern three-dimensional (3D) landscape model of the study area from high spatial resolution unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aerial photographs and analysed the distance change between the Yellow River and SHS site in the past 60 years from CORONA and Landsat images. By combining environmental archaeological survey results, archaeological excavation data, relevant papers, and field measurements, we reconstructed the paleotopography of the SHS site during the Yangshao period (7000–5000 aBP). On this basis, 3D natural and human landscapes during the Yangshao period were rebuilt. The results show that (1) Satellite images acquired at different resolutions can provide multiscale spatial information about the site, and high-precision models of current conditions can be quickly generated from UAV aerial photography. (2) From 1960 to 2020, the shortest distance between the SHS site and the Yellow River was approximately 512 m. The location of bedrock on Mang Mountain can be used to infer the early extent of the northern terrace at the site. (3) Environmental archaeology provided information about the palaeoenvironment of the site area. By incorporating spatial information technology and 3D visualization, we can better restore the early landscape of the SHS site. Our work integrates environmental archaeology, field archaeology, and spatial technology, enabling data and modelling support for the visual interpretation of the SHS site. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 100 Years of Archaeological Research in China (1921-2021): A Space-Based Perspective)
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