A team of scientists investigating early human species in an ancient cave near Johannesburg, South Africa, have revealed that preserved tissue found on a 2-million-year-old fossil may be the oldest sample of human skin ever recovered. The finding may reveal new information about the species and about our human origins.
The sample came from the remains of 4ft 2 inch tall male juvenile belonging to the species known as Australopithecus sediba, which were recovered in 2008 within an ancient cave in the Malapa Nature Reserve, situated in the ‘Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site’. The area is important as nearly a third of the entire evidence for human origins in Africa comes from just a few sites in this region.
