Does disciplinary history matter? An introduction / Raymond Corbey and Wil Roebroeks -- Myths, narratives and the uses of history / Peter J. Bowler -- How to benefit from received ideas / Wiktor Stoczkowski -- On 'normalizing' the Palaeolithic: an orthodoxy questioned / Tim Murray -- From Sangiran to Olduvai, 1937-1960: the quest for 'centres' of hominid origins in Asia and Africa / Robin W. Dennell -- Biases and double standards in palaeoanthropology / Wil Roebroeks and Raymond Corbey -- On savages and simians: continuity and discontinuity in the history of human origin studies / David Van Reybrouck -- Taxonomic revolutions and the animal-human boundary / Matt Cartmill -- Adaptationism versus cladism in human evolution studies / Richard G. Delisle -- Epistemic attitudes and palaeoanthropology: a case study / Herman C.D.G. de Regt -- Observations on the epistemology of human origins research / Geoffrey A. Clark -- Does disciplinary history matter? An epilogue / Bert Theunissen