SCIENTISTS at Oxford University have been brought in to help identify a human skull trawled up off the coast.

Dartmouth police are investigating an 'unexplained death' after the skull was discovered in the nets of a Newlyn-based trawler and brought into the port.

The skull – thought to be that of a male – is currently undergoing carbon dating at the university.

Both the police and the coroner are waiting to discover how old the remains are before deciding where to take the investigation from there.

Possible theories include that it could be the remains of a US victim of the Exercise Tiger disaster when hundreds of servicemen died off the South Devon coast in 1944 or it could simply be the subject of a burial at sea.

Insp Andy Tomlinson said the investigation is currently an 'ongoing inquiry into an unexplained death'.

He said that the future of the investigation will depend upon the circumstance.

'When the information comes back we will liaise with the coroner and make a practical decision over whether it is further investigated or not,' he added.

The skull was trawled up somewhere between 14 nautical miles south west and 10 nautical miles south of Start Point.

The trawler reported the incident and took the skull to near the mouth of the River Dart where it was met by a police officer in a Dart Harbour launch.

The skull was initially sent to Torbay Hospital where an initial finding was that it was probably that of a male and had been in the sea for less than around 60 years.

It was discovered in June. In July it was sent off to Oxford for more accurate carbon dating and police are still awaiting the result.

A spokesman for the Torbay Coroner said: 'People are still making inquiries. The skull has gone to a lab to be tested to see if it can give us more clues on age and that sort of thing.'

He pointed out that the coroner's office still had three skulls which had been trawled up from the sea in this area over the last 10 years which had never been identified.