Lasting effort

Countless relics await discovery, but locating them is far from easy. The weather and the plateau's rugged landscape can be harsh on archaeologists, while lack of personnel is another significant challenge.

Shargan Wangdue said there are only 10 full-time archaeologists and nine cultural relic conservators at his institute. As Tibet has a land area of about 1.2 million square km, everyone has a full working schedule.

The archaeologists' basic research tools and other equipment are no different to those used by teams elsewhere in China, but the natural conditions make their work tougher.

"When we're doing research in the wild, we sometimes get up at 4:30 am to drive from one heritage site to the next, because of the distance involved," Shargan Wangdue said. "If we're lucky, there will be a place where we can eat on the way, but often we have all our meals in the car."

For the archaeologists working in Tibet, car repair skills are also useful.

Shargan Wangdue said: "All the difficulties are just routine for archaeologists, as we have such an important job. It's also great to see more and more national-level archaeological teams joining us."

He and his colleagues are not working alone. National-level institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the National Centre for Archaeology, have drafted a long list of archaeological programs involving Tibet.

Some provincial-level institutions with leading expertise have also lent a helping hand. For example, the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology has been devoted to Tibetan studies since 1985.

According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, 42 archaeological research or excavation programs involving institutes from the rest of the country were launched in Tibet during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). A total of 34.4 million yuan ($5.4 million) was spent by these institutes to support their research.

All the major excavations in the past two years were jointly carried out by the Cultural Relics Conservation Institute of Tibet Autonomous Region and leading universities and research institutes nationwide.

In 2020, a new long-term national-level guideline for archaeology in Tibet from 2021 to 2035 was released by the National Cultural Heritage Administration, calling for better-equipped hi-tech laboratories and warehouses for relics unearthed in the region.

More important, an increased number of local archaeologists will be nurtured, benefiting from promising plans for the future.

According to the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), released by the State Council in November, the number of archaeologists in China is expected to rise from about 6,000 at the end of 2020 to 10,000 by 2025.

Shargan Wangdue sees this as an opportunity to recruit more new blood to his team.

"At the moment, when a major project is announced, we may have to call in all 10 archaeologists in our team, and we barely have time to assign each one to a specific field. But if more people arrive, we can use their expertise for different historical periods," he said.