Clara Vale, cist burial with beaker

HER Number:
518

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Clara Vale, cist burial with beaker

Place:
Clara Vale

Map Sheet:
NZ16SW

Class:
Religious Ritual and Funerary

Site Type: Broad:
Funerary Site

Site Type: Specific:
Cist

General Period:
Prehistoric

Specific Period:
Bronze Age

Form of Evidence:
Find

Description:
In 1911 a cist burial with skeletal remains and a beaker was found during the ploughing of one of the hills in a field close to Clara Vale Colliery. The cist, orientated east-west, was 3 feet 8 in long x 2 feet 4 in wide at the west end, 1 feet 9 in at the east, and 2 feet 5 in deep. The sides were made of single stone slabs, the floor and top of several pieces. The burial was a contracted inhumation, the remains being of an adult male, with femurs 18 in (45.7 cm) long, and the beaker was found beneath the left arm in the south-east corner of the cist. The vessel, 195 mm high, with a rim diam of 135 mm, was decorated with encircling notched lines in groups of three, divided from one another by notches, herringbone, upright lines of notching, and a trellis pattern. Two plain bands divide the decoration into three zones. The present location of the vessel is obscure, but it may be in the British Museum.

Easting:
1302

Northing:
6462

Grid Reference:
NZ13026462

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 518 >> J. Graham, 1913,Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 3, V (for 1911-12), pp. 18-19 C.T. Trechmann,1914, Prehistoric Burials in the County of Durham, Archaeologia Aeliana, 3, XI, pp. 132-4, and figs. 6-8 Museum of Antiquities, Notebooks of W.A. Cocks- Site 2 R. Miket, 1984, The Prehistory of Tyne and Wear, p. 19 no. 3