Publication Trends in Research on Human Environment Interactions in Early China

Over the last two decades, there has been a move towards the use of archaeometric analyses such as ancient DNA, isotopic, and paleoenvironmental research to gain deeper insight into past human realities. In China, this can be seen in the growing body of research on ancient human-environment interaction by both archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists citing environmental change as a major factor in cultural and social development over time. In a world increasingly concerned about climate change, such research is geared towards high-ranking scientific journals and can also make waves in the media. For the scholars involved, such publicity obviously entails a boost to their career, which in China (perhaps even more than elsewhere) has come to be highly dependent on publication in high-ranking journals. At the same time, some of the results of such work have been criticised as overly simplistic, built on data that has been produced in an unsystematic way or without taking local archaeological contexts into consideration. To better understand these publication trends, this chapter collects and analyses publication data and contextualises these within broader developments in Chinese archaeology. Using a bibliometric approach, the chapter considers what has shaped these publication trends, such as journal rankings both within and outside of China, a desire to showcase the scientific aspects of these projects, as well as desire to engage with distinct academic circles and the public.

China · Climate change · Impact factor · Publicity · Work (physics) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Tree-ring climate responses