The human skeletal remains found in Mountain Lake on Saturday afternoon may have been there since the 1920s, a Giles County investigator said.
 
The remains were found by people who were walking along the bed of the dried-up lake, Lt. Ron Hamlin said.
 
They definitely belonged to a human, he said. Some personal items were found near the body but nothing that would immediately lead to an identification, he said.
 
Some coins were found next to the body, he said. "The latest one we found was from 1920," Hamlin said, leading investigators to believe the body had been in the lake for decades.
 
A class ring also was found, Hamlin said. He declined to say where or when it was from.
 
Also, he said, some pieces of fabric and a pair of extremely old shoes were found nearby.
 
Hamlin said it's too early to determine how old the person was or whether it was a man or a woman, but he said the shoes appeared to be men's shoes.
 
The remains were removed from the lake bed on Sunday, he said.