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bobpc wrote:
Is there anything in South Shields, Pelaw, Wardley, Boldon, Hebburn. I am convinced there has to be something there.
Hallo Bob,

There's nowt to see in any of those places these days, unless you count the titchy cup-marked portable at Arbeia fort. I've not seen it, but it's not much to write home about by all accounts.

Annoyingly, there did used to be a few bits and bobs, but they've all been trashed. Reports of cists that indicate a high likelihood of cairns have popped up all over ST and Gateshead, stretching down to the other side of Wearside.

Heading south from the Tyne, Wearside is the first place that has undisputed prehistoric remains, with the cursus and associated bits at Hastings Hill and Copt Hill-
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6788/hasting_hill_cursus.html
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2301/copt_hill.html

Mind you, whenever I've got the 319 through Boldon, the view from the top deck at sunset/sunrise always used to suggest a badly trashed hillfort to me. I'd also bet confectionary on there having once been cairns along the ridge between Boldon and the Coast. And as for the area around Bede's Well, I think it would have been a fair bet that the shape of the land would have lent itself to cairns/mounds visible from the river, at the very least.

The unproveable and highly conjectural prehistory of Tyneside. One of my favourite subjects :) I've some more detailed refs to some of the destroyed sites, if you're interested, I'll dig them out and post them here.

Hi Bobpc,

As a sanddancer myself I'm sorry to say there's very little to see in South Shields -
The Rev Greenwell excavated a tumulus on or near trow rocks; apparently finding a sword which is now in the collection of the British museum, unfortunately no trace of the mound is left. The Shields museum has several prehistoric artifacts including a bronze winged axe head but that's not on display and you've got to arrange a viewing with the curator.

Very early remains of flints and stone tools as well as auroch bones were found in a cave on Cleadon hills in the late 1800's, but I've been unable to locate the cave (probably quarried out), although I'm sure somethings are still there to be found - I'm still hoping for the big Shields rockart panel ;-)

Akas