What would it be like to meet one of our closest human relatives from 75,000 years ago in the flesh?

Scientists have produced a remarkable reconstruction of what a Neanderthal woman would have looked like when she was alive.

It is based on the flattened, shattered remains of a skull whose bones were so soft when excavated they had the consistency of "a well-dunked biscuit".

Researchers first had to strengthen the fragments before reassembling them.

Expert palaeoartists then created the 3D model.

The representation appears in a new BBC Studios documentary for Netflix called Secrets of the Neanderthals, which examines what we know about our long-lost evolutionary cousins, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago.

The sculpture puts a face to these people.

"I think she can help us connect with who they were," said Dr Emma Pomeroy, a palaeoanthropologist on the project from the University of Cambridge .

"It's extremely exciting and a massive privilege actually to be able to work with the remains of any individual but especially one as special as her," she told BBC News.