Barkhale Camp is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, an archaeological site on Bignor Hill, on the South Downs in West Sussex, England.

A small trench was dug in 1930 by Ryle, and a more extensive excavation was undertaken by Veronica Seton-Williams between 1958 and 1961, which confirmed Curwen's survey and found a characteristically Neolithic assemblage of flints.

Barkhale Camp is a causewayed enclosure,[2] a form of earthwork that was built in northwestern Europe, including the southern British Isles, in the early Neolithic.

There is also evidence that they played a role in funeral rites: material such as food, pottery, and human remains was deliberately deposited in the ditches.

[9] The construction of these enclosures took only a short time, which implies significant organization since substantial labour would have been required for clearing the land, preparing trees for use as posts or palisades, and digging the ditches.

[10] Over seventy causewayed enclosures have been identified in the British Isles,[6] and they are one of the most common types of an early Neolithic site in western Europe.

The enclosure is oval, with thirteen segments of ditch and bank, separated by causeways, all to the north of a trackway passing through the site,[12][13] which probably dates to the early 19th century.

[14] At the time of the survey that identified the ditches in 1930 the area to the south of the track was too overgrown to investigate, though it has since been cleared by the National Trust, the site owner.

The site has been severely damaged by ploughing, and the banks are now no more than 0.5 metres (1 ft 8 in) high, but the outlines of the ditches and causeways have not been completely obliterated.

Burstow, who identified an interrupted ditch, using an earth auger and a boser—a tool for detecting underground bedrock, or the lack of it, by listening to the sound made when a heavy rammer strikes the ground.

[25] In 1958 Veronica Seton-Williams began a series of excavations at Barkhale Camp, using the digs as a way to train extra-mural students from London University.

The causeways between the ditches were found to have a layer of flint and clay on top of the chalk; Leach suggests that this was to improve the surface since these were accessways into the site.

[31] By 1978 Barkhale Camp was owned by the National Trust, which decided to clear the trees from the area south of the track, and asked the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit to excavate the site before the clearance work began.

Leach investigated several mounds within the enclosure, and attempted to determine the line of the enclosing bank in the southern part of the site.

[38] Gathering Time was a project funded by English Heritage and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to reanalyze the radiocarbon dates of nearly 40 causewayed enclosures, using Bayesian analysis.

[39][13] Barkhale Camp was included in the project, but the acidic soil meant that no bone survived, and no suitable material could be found for sampling.