Skeleton of ancient human relative may yield skin

Skeleton of ancient human relative may yield skin: As London's Natural History Museum takes delivery of two replica fossils, palaeontologists hint that they have discovered tools with the fossils, and mummified skin on the bones

It is strangely moving to hold it, knowing that this is an exact replica of a hand of one of our most ancient relatives. The bones looked frail and slight lying on the black felt, but fit snugly on my palm, knuckles lining up to knuckles (see photo). This woman, who died 1.9 million years ago after falling down a watering hole in what is now South Africa, had hands remarkably similar to mine.

This morning, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, gave a full cast of her fossil ...