Objective As a special type of heritage, scenic heritage has long existed in China since ancient times, which is dominated by traditional “scenery”. Scenic heritage has a broad spatio-temporal span. Spatially, scenic heritage is formed under the macro landscape space system, and its humanistic and aesthetic values are associated with a wide range of space, which needs to be perceived from the perspective of “overall” landscape environment, rather than the perspective of “local” subject of heritage; temporally, scenic heritage is not a static historical section, but a result of long-term inter-generational inheritance, and its spatial elements, cognitive scope, and cultural values are constantly changing. The wide spatio-temporal span increases the difficulty of comprehensively identifying and recognizing the spatio-temporal characteristics of scenic heritage and its values. As a result, the continuously changing spatial elements and socio-cultural values of scenic heritage cannot be comprehensively identified, leading to a series of problems such as the static protection of heritage space, and the monotonous and fragmented interpretation of cultural values and historical information. In addition, the documents carrying multiple historical information are numerous and scattered, and it is difficult to carry out comprehensive and repeated archaeological excavation of scenic heritage as a living heritage, which further increases the difficulty of collecting and integrating historical information. Therefore, there is an urgent need to construct an appropriate path for research on the spatio-temporal and value characteristics of scenic heritage, so as to effectively deal with the dual fragmentation of spatial environment and historical information that scenic heritage is currently facing.

Methods The research draws on the theoretical perspective of landscape archaeology, which focuses on the overall environment of heritage and explores the anchoring connection between space and culture, and adopts the multiple evidence method to, through the comparison and mutual verification of multiple historical evidence, construct a path for research on spatio-temporal and value characteristics of scenic heritage based on multiple evidence, in an effort to help resolve the problems of change of spatial environment and fragmentation of historical information faced by scenic heritage. At the same time, Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage is selected as a typical example for the empirical application of the constructed path. Beiyan Scenic Heritage in Fuling, Chongqing is located on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and has gradually become an important humanistic resort through local construction for generations due to its important value as the birthplace of “Yili” (a branch of Chinese philosophy). However, due to the lack of multi-temporal and multi-modal concepts and methods of scenic heritage cognition, the current scope of protection of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage is limited to the cultural relics protection units for Beiyan Inscriptions and their nearby historical building areas, which has led to the aesthetic fragmentation between Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage and surrounding natural environment, as well as the loss of city − landscape relevance. In addition, the failure to fully understand the process of dynamic changes in Beiyan has also resulted in the problems of unclear historical stages of conservation, destruction of key spatial patterns, and monolithic interpretation of cultural values. The research aims to achieve the restoration of historical space, the analysis of spatio-temporal evolution, and the interpretation of cultural associations through the application of landscape archaeology methods such as comparing and contrasting multiple historical evidence regarding Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage, GIS landscape characterization, visual field analysis, and spatial evolution analysis. Firstly, in the step of historical spatial restoration, the historical information of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage is verified based on the comparison and mutual verification of the four types of evidence, namely chronicles, poems, images, and maps; secondly, in the step of spatio-temporal evolution analysis, spatial evolution analysis is adopted to analyze the spatial pattern characteristics of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage and the change law of landscape elements from the perspective of dynamics; and lastly, the cultural life characteristics associated with the spatial representations of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage are summarized and interpreted based on the spatial analysis, so as to infer socio-cultural associations from the space. Finally, on this basis, the cultural characteristics behind the spatial representations are summarized and interpreted, and the deeper contents and values of social culture and philosophical thoughts are inferred from the space.

Results The spatio-temporal characteristics of the overall spatial association of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage presented as “mountain − river − village − yard”, the inter-generational inheritance and expansion process of the key nodes of the core space, as well as the characteristics of the socio-cultural values of the important place of education, the local scenic landmarks, and the places of important local activities are identified.

Conclusion The subsequent conservation of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage should focus on reconstructing the overall structure of “mountain − river − village − yard”, resetting the internal elements and reshaping the value interpretation and dissemination system on the basis of full knowledge of its spatio-temporal and value characteristics, so as to better conserve and pass on the socio-cultural values of Fuling Beiyan Scenic Heritage, with a view to providing a reference for the practice of landscape heritage conservation in China.