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

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.

[3][4] Combe Hill is on the South Downs, overlooking the Weald to the north, about five kilometres (three miles) northwest of Eastbourne, in East Sussex.

[13] The great majority of pottery finds came from the western side, and are associated with animal bone and charcoal fragments; Peter Drewett, who reviewed the excavation history in 1994, suggested that three polished axes deposited at the eastern side of the enclosure were there to mark a boundary, for example if the enclosure represented the eastern extent of the territorial control of the people who built it.

Many of these smaller enclosures are in the upper Thames Valley, near rivers, and of the others, those at higher elevations like Combe Hill, often have a second causewayed ditch surrounding the first.

[1] The historian Hadrian Allcroft included the site in his 1908 survey, Earthwork of England; he describes it as of "almost beyond doubt of British construction", meaning that it precedes the Roman conquest.

[29] The finds consisted of four bronze axes in excellent condition: one complete, two that had been deliberately broken in half, probably as votive offerings, and the blade from a fourth.

[32] In 1949 Reginald Musson excavated Combe Hill for the Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeological Society, to determine the accuracy of Curwen's plan.

This trench was extended northwards, finding first a 3.7 m (4.0 yd) long causeway of unexcavated chalk, and then the southern end of the next ditch in the circuit.

[12] Musson also investigated the bank of earth next to the ditch (trench 2 in the diagram),[12][14] clearing an area 1.8 by 9 metres (2 by 10 yards) to search for post-holes, but none were found.

[34] Charcoal fragments of ash, hawthorn and hazel were found; there was no oak, which was unusual, and in his later review Drewett suggested this might indicate the landscape had been cleared.

[34] A subsequent re-analysis, based on extracting more snail shells from soil samples preserved from Musson's dig, was undertaken by K. D. Thomas, an expert on molluscs, for Drewett's 1994 review.

[39] Once the ditch had silted in, another shallow cut had been made, which Drewett dates to the Romano-British period, based on the pottery found in the layers inside the recut.

Two small trenches, labelled F1 and F2 on the diagram, were dug at the top of the slope, but found no evidence that the bank and ditch had ever extended around the enclosure's northern side.

Trench G produced a few sherds and some struck flint; these were all lost by the time Drewett evaluated the results of the dig, but he suggested that the pottery was probably Romano-British, since it was found not far below the turf line.

[39] In May 1983, Rodney Castleden, a Sussex resident walking on Combe Hill, found a carved chalk item partly exposed through the turf in the middle of the enclosure.

Thompson suggested it may have been a half-completed carving of a phallic symbol: it was roughly rectangular in cross-section, narrowing towards one end, with incised lines on two sides.

Clusters of post-holes were found in the south and east of the inner enclosure, which may have been part of a structure intended to control access to the entrances to the site.

[43] 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.

[44] Combe Hill was included in the project, but although a few animal bones and some charcoal had been retained from the excavations, no suitable material could be found for sampling.