Session: #344

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As a direct beneficiary of a century and a half’s research on Neandertals, our present-day scholarly community has at its disposal a vast amount of data pertaining to an incredibly diverse spectrum of facets of this long-lost relative and predecessor of ours. However, during this long period, scientific methods, technological and methodological aspects, theory and practices have developed at different paces—and sometimes followed several trajectories—in different countries. As such, it can often be difficult to evaluate and compare various datasets dealing with Neandertal legacy, whether biological, cultural or other. Likewise, for numerous reasons, problems exist in relation to access to data and information for various sites and finds. In addition, the research questions asked by different groups and scholars from not only separate disciplines, but sometimes from the same disciplines but following diverse traditions, as well as from a variety of countries, are often difficult to compare, even if their goal is the same.
These overall shortcomings in Neandertal research and in the general management of Neandertal heritage have recently been addressed by an international initiative—a COST programme Action entitled ‘Integrating Neandertal Legacy: From Past to Present’—which aims to collate a long-term network of scientists with the goal of creating a usable and inclusive, inter- and multidisciplinary database and data sharing platform for all those interested in Neandertals.
As a follow up to the last year’s EAA conference in Kiel, we would once again like to invite all those interested in different aspects of Neandertals and their legacy to join us with their presentations thereby contributing to bridging the geographic, linguistic, disciplinary-and-data specific gaps, as well as the issues created by the diverse traditions of different disciplines operating in various European countries. We especially welcome contributions that offer proactive, realistic and feasible solutions that could lead to synergistic effects in research, management and valorisation of Neandertal heritage.

Session: #344

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