Neanderthalarnas försvinnande, en diskursanalys

Sammanfattning: The perceptions of what caused the disappearance of the Neanderthals have been argued a great deal among researchers. In this paper I will present five hypotheses that different researchers have presented. Each one of these hypotheses departs from the others and stands behind either a cultural, biological or an environmental model of explanation. The aim of this thesis has been to view what the argumentation among the researches looks like, which hypotheses they argue for and which hypotheses they argue against and why they do it. It has also been to view how the different models of explanation react to each other and what the researcher`s lines of reasoning looks like through the different models of explanation. Do they stand by more than one of these models of explanations or several. In the first section this thesis will present a short summary of the origin of the Neanderthals and see if we can see any chances in the research around the disappearance of the Neanderthals. It will also review the different hypotheses. In the second section this thesis will present the researchers arguments for or against the various explanative models. The final section will discuss why the researches argue for and why they argue against a hypothesis and what it is that influence them. The discussion will also deal with how the models of explanation respond to each other and which one the researches stand by and why. The discussion will be followed by a conclusion. What one can see is that there is a large disagreement among the various researchers. The researchers stand behind different hypotheses and different models of explanation which causes the large disagreement among them. The reason for why there are not more researchers that stands behind of all three models of explanation could be that the differences between them may be too high. One could however argue here that it might be better if the researchers try to stand behind all of the models of explanation. That would give the researchers a better understanding of the disappearance of the Neanderthals and it would also reduce the disagreement among them. Another thing that can be seen is what circumstances influenced their way of thinking. Here their subject field plays a large role considering that for an example a biologist mainly stands behind a biological model of explanation. Also what kind of research the researchers practice can give one an understanding of the researchers’ standpoint, for an example a researcher that stands behind an environmental model of explanation mainly practice research in environment and climate, their changes and effects on different species. Another thing that also affects the researches standpoints is the changes in the research, for an example new finds and new and better methods that may analyze DNA and pollen better. But here the researchers themselves have a large role because the researches affects each other with theirs research. What one can see regarding the argumentation among different researches is that there are no completely accepted hypotheses about what caused the disappearance of the Neanderthals.