BONES DISCOVERED IN CANYON ARE HUMAN REMAINS.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Staff Writer

CANYON COUNTRY - Bones discovered in a remote rugged area of Canyon Country by a land surveyor were determined Wednesday to be human remains, sheriff's officials said.

A skull and several long bones were found late Tuesday night out on open land by a surveyor who had been hiking in the area in Vasquez Canyon west of Mystery Mesa Drive as part of his job.

``The bones are definitely of human origin,'' said Sgt. Marty Rodriguez, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. ``We can't tell anything beyond that at this point.''

Officials said there was no evidence of a grave or anything else that would help investigators identify the remains or how they got there.

Rodriguez was flown by helicopter out to the remote area along with a forensics physician and coroner's investigator who retrieved the bones for further investigation.

``We will probably require intervention with an anthropologist to sex the bones and determine if it's male or female or if there is any trauma,'' said Scott Carrier, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. ``We will then attempt to determine a cause of death.''