A badly decomposed human head found in a bag in Edinburgh was dumped within the past few days and could come from a woman who died as recently as six months ago, police said yesterday.

Detectives also disclosed that other body parts, believed to be bones from the upper torso, were found in the Ikea bag and the surrounding area.

The remains were discovered on Wednesday by a woman in the Newhaven area of Edinburgh.

Police initially believed that the woman died between ten to fifteen years ago, but they have narrowed this time scale to any time between the last six months and ten years.

While the case is not being treated as murder, police described the find as “suspicious” and are carrying out further scientific tests in an attempt to determine the cause of death.

Detective Superintendent Allan Jones, of Lothian and Borders Police, said: “The remains could have been dumped as recently as a couple of days ago - certainly within the last week.

“It is an adult female, whose precise age we can't say. The head was significantly decomposed, as opposed to mummified, as earlier reports suggested. In terms of how long the person has been dead, we initially thought ten to fifteen years, but our forensic investigators believe that it could be as recent as six months.”

A number of body parts were found in the bag along with the head, and in the surrounding area. Early tests indicate that the remains belong to the same person, but they do not form a complete skeleton. The deceased woman is thought to be aged at least 16, but her ethnicity has not yet been established.

Mr Jones said that forensic science teams would carry out more tests, including radioactive dating of the bones, in an attempt to narrow down the cause and time of death.

“There is a large bank of tests that we can do. Different experts with different expertise will work together to build a picture of who this person is, where they are from, and how long they have been dead,” he added.

Despite the progress made so far, Mr Jones said that identifying the woman would be a much more difficult process, and could take several weeks. A DNA profile has already been obtained from the remains, but a match could only be made if the woman was on a database. Dental records are also being examined and detectives are reopening several missing persons cases.

The Ikea bag was found close to the Lindsay Road entrance of Hawthornvale, a public footpath that runs to the Roseburn area of the capital and which is popular with dogwalkers. Mr Jones said that the bag was discovered about 2 metres off the footpath and would have been “very conspicuous”.

He appealed for anyone who might have seen anybody acting suspiciously in the area to get in touch and for information that could help identify the deceased. He dismissed as speculation reports that the remains could have been taken from a crypt, adding that the case was not being treated as a murder inquiry at the moment.

“It is quite perplexing, but it is still being treated as human remains discovered in suspicious circumstances until we get some evidence to suggest that criminality was involved,” he said.

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