Experts and students from the School of History and Culture at Shandong University working at an archeological site With further support under the Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs’ jointly administered “Higher Education Discipline Innovation and Introduction of Foreign Talent Plan” (Plan 111), Shandong University’s Environmental Archeaology program, the 111 Project on Environmental Archeology, will launch a Paleo-DNA Laboratory to improve the experimental instruction and research system. Currently the 111 Project on Environmental Archeology includes an environmental archeology laboratory, plant laboratory, animal laboratory, and a Neolithic analysis laboratory, all of which draw support from Plan 111, aiming to increase the foreign talent base in Chinese higher education. “The establishment of an experimental instruction and research

 

system for the archeological laboratory is based on the trends of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary development,” Fang Hui, dean of the School of History and Culture at Shandong University, commented. “At laboratories, we can gain much more information for modern archeology.” Because of the limitations of methodologies and technologies in traditional archeological research, valuable information was omitted in the past. According to Fang, an abundance of new information is being discovered at archeological sites through natural scientific analysis. Fang indicated that DNA in ancient remains is significant genetic materials for analysis. The successful application of paleo-DNA analysis techniques has become a new field of archeological research.        The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 413, Feb. 4, 2013                                                                                                                          Translated by Zhang Mengying