TY - JOUR TI - On Research History and Neanderthal Occupation at its Northern Margins AU - Nielsen, Trine Kellberg AU - Riede, Felix T2 - European Journal of Archaeology AB - \textlessp\textgreaterEpistemology and research history significantly shape scientific understandings, debates, and publication strategies, albeit often implicitly. In Palaeolithic archaeology in particular, these factors are rarely examined in depth. Here, we present a historiographic analysis of how research history has influenced the debate concerning the possible Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia. We provide a qualitative discussion of this contentious research field as well as a citation network analysis that visualizes, quantifies, and hence clarifies some of the underlying conceptual, geographic, and temporal patterns in the development of the debate. Our results show significant regionalism as a structuring principle driving this debate as well as a basic rift between professional and avocational archaeologists in how they interpret and publish the available data. We also identify a troubling lack of cross-referencing, even when taking language barriers into account. We argue that the debate about Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia has been shaped (negatively) by the following phenomena: regionalism, nationalism, lack of research and researchers, non-cumulative work, publication in Nordic languages, science by press release/sensationalism, and a lamentable trend towards arguments ad hominem. In order to take this research field forward, we propose an epistemological turn towards a cumulative, international, and hypothesis-driven agenda based on renewed research efforts and novel citizen science tools.\textless/p\textgreater DA - 2018/// PY - 2018 DO - 10.1017/eaa.2018.12 SP - 1 EP - 22 SN - 1461-9571 UR - https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1461957118000128/type/journal_article KW - /unread KW - citation network analysis KW - citizen science KW - neanderthal KW - research history KW - scandinavia ER -