Summerhill, cist (3) with skeleton and Food Vessel

HER Number:
611

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Summerhill, cist (3) with skeleton and Food Vessel

Place:
Summerhill

Map Sheet:
NZ16SE

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:
On 11 Nov. 1938 a cist burial was found on the edge of the Summerhill sand quarry some 40 yards from the Blaydon-Greenside road, opposite to a point 20 yards east of the lane which crosses that road at Path Head. The cist was excavated by T.R. Goddard of the Hancock Museum. It was constructed of four sandstone slabs which formed a rectangular space 2 feet x 3 feet 4 in, x 2 feet 3in deep, floored by thin irregular sand stone slabs and topped by a broken coverstone. The cist contained a poorly preserved contracted skeleton and a broken Food Vessel, with small fragments of charcoal and burnt bone on the floor. The Food Vessel, 150 mm high, rim diam 166 mm, base diam 88 mm, is in light buff fabric with a dark grey core. It is decorated with a single row of whipped cord impressions on the rim, alternating groups of horizontal and vertical lines of whipped cord on the neck and shoulder, with vertical lines between shoulder and base.

Easting:
1748

Northing:
6340

Grid Reference:
NZ17486340

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 611 >> W. Bulmer 1939, A Note on two more Cists at Summerhill, Blaydon, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4, XVI, pp. 260-3 W.A. Cocks, 1952, Cocks' letters etc.- Gateshead Library Local Studies R. Miket, 1984, The Prehistory of Tyne and Wear, p. 25 no. 13.3