Human skull, bones found in Berkeley ditch

Investigators remain puzzled as to how a human skull ended up in a ditch near the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last week.

The skull was found at about 1:30 p.m. on April 18 by Berkeley Lab staff who were clearing a drainage ditch in steep, bushy terrain near the lab’s southern fence, Berkeley Lab officials said.

They found the skull and a few other bones outside the fence line but still on Berkeley Lab property. The Alameda County coroner’s bureau responded to investigate, but haven’t made any determinations about how the bones got there or how long they’d been there.

The only thing that Sgt. Paul Graves of the coroner’s bureau could say for sure is that the bones are not believed to be from a Native American.

“It’s early in the investigation. We’re going to rely on anthropology to give us some details on the age and the gender of the deceased individual,” Graves said.