Summerhill, cist (4) with skeleton and beaker

HER Number:
615

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Summerhill, cist (4) with skeleton and beaker

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:
The well-constructed cist had internal dimensions 3 feet 6 in x 2 feet, x 1 feet 6 in deep, with particularly large and thick side and cover stones, the latter 5 feet 6 in x 3 feet, x 4 in thick. The joints between the stones were packed with small stones or clay, and the floor of the cist consisted of 3 slabs of sandstone, 1 in thick, carefully fitted together. The cist contained a contracted skeleton and a pottery vessel upon sand and pebbles, plus some fragments of charcoal and burnt bone. The pottery vessel was a beaker measuring 184 mm in height with a rim diameter of 153 mm. The neck is decorated with five notched-wheel horizontal grooves, and the rest of the body, below a zigzag line, with comb-impressed horizontal bands, chevrons, cross-hatching, herringbone and zigzag. It is probably in the Museum of Antiquities.

Easting:
1747

Northing:
6340

Grid Reference:
NZ17476340

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 615 >> 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. 13.4