The more than 70-year history of grottoes conservation in China has witnessed the pivotal role of technological advancements in guiding the preservation and utilization of these sites, which has fundamentally enhanced our theoretical and technical innovation capabilities in the field of grottoes protection. The complexity of grottoes protection and the diversity of environment requires not only the involvement of multiple disciplines, but also the systematic establishment of methods and techniques for preserving materiality and maintaining culture, so as to form a comprehensive, systematic and multidisciplinary theoretical and technical system of grottoes protection. The importance that the government places on the protection technology of the cultural relics and the implementation of major science and technology projects, such as the “National Science and Technology Innovation Center for Cultural Heritage”, makes it possible to achieve this goal.

As essential part of the religious branch of archaeology in China, Buddhist archaeology confronts three challenges in the course of systematization. The first one is to gradually build up Buddhist archaeology as a discipline with complete disciplinary, academic and discourse systems both to international standard and with Chinese characteristics. The second is to establish the typological system of cultural areas for Buddhist archaeology. The third is to nurture subdisciplines of Buddhist archaeology as an interdisciplinary science. After the century-long development, the Chinese archaeology from time to time requires an retrospect of what Buddhist archaeology has already achieved until now and an outlook of where it will go in the future. In the course of bolstering cultural self-confidence and developing a modern Chinese civilization for a new era, this must be of great significance for developing archaeology with Chinese features, style and ethos.

Cave temple archaeology is an essential branch of Chinese archaeology. In August 2021, the National Cultural Heritage Administration released the “Medium and Long Term Plan for Archaeology of Cave Temples in China (2021—2035)”, which signifies a new phase in China's archaeological research on cave temples. From aspects of Buddhist archaeology, cave temple archaeology and future archaeological work, a preliminary discussion that may benefit the present and future archaeological work of cave temples in China is made in this paper about the connotation, object, and method of Buddhist archaeology, and the normative recording of cave temple archaeology, the cleaning procedures for relics on cliff surface and ruins at cave entrance, the compiling of archaeological reports, and those practical issues demanding attention and solution.

To consolidate the sense of a community for the Chinese nation is to inherit and carry forward fine traditional Chinese culture based on the long history of Chinese nation. As significant cultural heritages, cave temples embody five distinctive features of Chinese civilization, including consistency, originality, unity, inclusiveness and the peace. The conservation and use of cave temples must focus on research and interpretation of fine traditional Chinese culture, and ground efforts on the sense of a community for the Chinese nation, and discover its historical value, so as to build the common spiritual homeland for the Chinese nation and serve the overall interests of the country.