Israeli Fossils Hint at Early Migration’ (Nature 665, 15–16; 2018) Gave the Wrong URL for Reference 1

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ISRAEL HERSHKOVITZ, TEL AVIV U 3. 2. 1. it might help to reduce biases. reviewer-training module, whether to see beginning,”the she says. Policy Research inMontreal. “We’re just at CIHR Institute and of Health Services Robyn Tamblyn, director scientific of the educating and evaluating reviewers, says ing bias against women and minorities by training it was,” Ginther says. would helpful be to know what kind of grantperson-focused programmes. “It as successful as men and science- in both 2016–17 grant cycle, female scientists were CIHR policies suggest opposite: the in the counterproductive that training might stir biases and be training module about unconscious bias. included asking reviewers to complete a CIHR implemented policies, which new funding outcomes disappeared after the interesting that gender the differences in concern. this echoes But she says it’s at USNational the Institutes of Health biasanalysed racial ingrant programmes University of Kansas inLawrence, who Volker says. researchers do that, bias the is “unproven”, publications for each applicant. But until the this by looking at number the and quality of other.the It would relatively be to easy test tion records, but one was preferred over that two applicants had similar publica results could bias would show ifthey reflect of Amsterdam. She says that CIHR the Volker, scientist at asocial University the it didn’t have access data. to those unable to account for such factors, because for different the success rates. Her team was tion records, which might help to account female applicants, such as publica their may differences and male be between was not randomized, meaning that there However, Witteman warns that study the A RANDOMACT difference,” Witteman says. for female applicants. “That’s asignificant rate for applicants male was than 4% higher andexperience qualifications, success the programme on that applicants’ the focused conventional programmes. But grant inthe gap insuccess rate was same the as inthe on researchers’ the focused science, the 4. Witteman now plans to look at the The CIHRis committed to eliminat Previous work, Ginther notes, showed Donna Ginther, an economist at the “That’s abig problem,” says Beate 380, dx.doi.org/10.1101/232868 (2018). Tannenbaum, C.Preprint atbioRxivhttp:// (2011). 5040519 (2013). Ginther, D.K. Bedi, G.,Van Dam,N.T. & Munafo,M. Witteman, H.O.,Hendricks,M.,Straus, S.& Kaiser, C.R. 474 (2012). et al.J.Pers.Soc.Psychol. et al.Science 4 . The effects of . The new effects the 333, 1015–1019 1015–1019 ■ Lancet Lancet 104, 104, ©

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M a c T are older than 300,000years, have the raised reportedsils last year from Morocco that simple narrative. Some 1920sandthe 1930s. and other remains from Israel, uncovered in dence includes 80,000–120,000-year-old skulls travels were from migrations. failed That evi ago. If so, it would mean that signs of earlier that group asmall some 60,000years Africa left ade countered that story, scientists surmized of world. the Until discoveries past inthe dec years ago, movedthen out to populate rest the H. sapiens or a more-lasting expansion of species. the fossils the whether represent a brief incursion 50,000 years. But scientists say that it is unclear human fossils from same the region by at least in and found teeth, inan Israeli cave and reported earlier than previously thought. The upper jaw Peninsula around 180,000years ago —much BY EWENCALLAWAY Bones suggest humans left Africa 180,000years ago. at early migration Israeli fossils hint An upperjawandteethare thoughttobetheearliestevidenceof m i PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY l l However, recent discoveries have muddied Researchers thought originally that a Science n

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A l l r i g 1 FEBRUARY1 VOL 2018 | NATURE 554 | |15 - - - - h t s r e another.” to continent one from corridor this land going through coming and “People were one human migration from Africa parisons of populations global pointing to just have sown more confusion, with some com some 120,000years ago. And genome studies China ern perhaps Teeth in Africa. elsewhere from south possibility that humans evolved earlier and remains were found 1920sand in the sites where 80,000–120,000-year-oldthe metres away from Skhulthe cave, one of the in 2002,Misliya Cave. It is just afew kilo says Weinstein-Evron. Humans’. This was what we were looking for,” Weinstein-Evron, at University the of Haifa In early the 2000s, archaeologist Mina EARLY START suggesting multiple waves s e r Their team discovered jaw the fragment v e d . Homo sapiens 3 hint at long-distance migrations outside Africa. the Earliest Modern Earliest the ing for of Origins the “We it ‘Search called ofseries Israeli caves. a project to excavate a Aviv University, began Hershkowitz, at Tel anthropologist Israel in Israel, and palaeo IN FOCUS 6 . 4,5 , and others and others , NEWS - - - - - NEWS IN FOCUS

1930s. Using several different methods, the team estimates the jaw and teeth to be 177,000–194,000 years old. The remains are unquestionably H. sapiens, says team member María Mar- tinón-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at

the National Research Centre on Human PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/GETTY Evolution in Burgos, Spain. The shapes of the teeth match those of both modern and ancient humans, she says. They also lack features typical of Neanderthals, which lived throughout Eurasia at the time. The dating seems solid and the fossils are H. sapiens, says Huw Groucutt, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, UK. But he isn’t very surprised to see them in Israel. He and his colleagues have previously said that 175,000-year-old stone tools from other sites in the Middle East resemble those used by H. sapiens in East Africa7. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Hershkowitz says that the jaw and teeth point to a long-term occupation of the Mid- dle East by early H. sapiens. “It was a cen- tral train station. People were coming and going through this land corridor from one Satyapal Singh is a junior minister for human-resource development in India. continent to another, and it was occupied all the time.” Once in the region, humans INDIA probably encountered and interbred with Neanderthals. As evidence, he points to a 2017 ancient-DNA study that suggested interbreeding had occurred before 200,000 Anti-Darwin comments years ago8. Wet periods could have drawn humans into the Middle East, but long, dry spells outrage researchers mean that “the region was probably more often a ‘boulevard of broken dreams’ than Indian scientists condemn higher-education minister who a stable haven for early humans”, write questioned the theory of evolution. Chris Stringer and Julia Galway-Witham, palaeoanthropologists at the Natural His- tory Museum in London, in a commentary BY T.V. PADMA ape turning into a man”. Two days later, he accompanying the paper9. proposed holding an international seminar The fossil could indicate that Israel and housands of scientists in India have on the subject. the rest of the Arabian Peninsula were signed an online petition protesting The comments provoked outrage in the part of a larger region in which H. sapiens against comments by a higher- Indian scientific community. Vishwesha evolved, says John Shea, an archaeologist at Teducation minister who last month publicly Guttal, an evolutionary ecologist at the Indian Stony Brook University in New York. “We questioned the scientific validity of Charles Institute of Science in Bangalore, suggests tend to think of Israel as part of Asia for Darwin’s theory of evolution and called for the remarks are the first time that such anti- geopolitical reasons, but it is really a transi- changes to educational curricula. evolution opinions have been aired by high- tion zone between North Africa and west- The incident continued to simmer when ranking politicians in India. “I have seen these ern Asia,” he says. “Plenty of Afro-Arabian Indian science minister Harsh Vardhan, a kind of issues (anti-Darwin stance) when I was animals live there, or did so until recently,” medical doctor, declined to comment on his a student in the US. This was totally unheard including leopards, lions and zebras. colleague’s remarks at a press conference on of, so far, in India,” says Guttal. “My first “Homo sapiens,” Shea says, “is just another 24 January. Vardhan said he had not studied thought was, ‘Is this coming to India now?’” such Afro-Arabian species.” ■ Darwin’s theory since he was a student and so Senior government officials later dismissed wasn’t qualified to discuss it. the comments. On 23 January, Singh’s boss 1. Hershkovitz, I. et al. Science http://dx.doi. org/10.1126/science.aap8369 (2018). The original comments were made by Prakash Javadekar, the senior minister for 2. Hublin, J.-J. et al. Nature 546, 289–292 (2017). Satyapal Singh, a junior minister for human- human-resource development, said that he 3. Liu, W. et al. Nature 526, 696–699 (2015). resource development who oversees university had asked Singh to refrain from making such 4. Mallick, S. et al. Nature 538, 201–206 (2016). 5. Malaspinas, A.-S. et al. Nature 538, 207–214 education. On 20 January, he told reporters remarks. “We should not dilute science,” (2016). at a conference on ancient Hindu texts in Javadekar said. He added that his ministry 6. Pagani, L. et al. Nature 538, 238–242 (2016). Aurangabad that Darwin’s theory of evolu- would not support any anti-Darwin activi- 7. Groucutt H. et al. Quat. Int. 382, 8–30 (2015). 8. Posth, C. et al. Nature Commun. 8, 16046 (2017). tion of humans “is scientifically wrong”. Singh ties such as Singh’s proposed conference or 9. Stringer, C. & Galway-Witham, J. Science 359, added that “nobody, including our ances- changing curricula. Singh did not respond to a 389–390 (2018). tors, in written or oral, have said they saw an request for comment from Nature’s news team.

16 | NATURE | VOL 554 | 1 FEBRUARY 2018 | CORRECTED 9 FEBRUARY 2018 ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved.

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CORRECTION The News story ‘Israeli fossils hint at early migration’ (Nature 665, 15–16; 2018) gave the wrong URL for reference 1. It should have been http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/ science.aap8369.