Whitehawk was first excavated by R. P. Ross Williamson and E. Cecil Curwen in 1929 in response to a plan to lay out football pitches on the site.

In 2011, the Gathering Time project published an analysis of radiocarbon dates from almost forty British causewayed enclosures, including several from Whitehawk Camp.

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.

[11] They were constructed in 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.

[12] In 1930, the archaeologist E. Cecil Curwen identified sixteen sites that were definitely or probably Neolithic causewayed enclosures.

[13] A few more were found over the succeeding decades,[14] and the list of known sites was significantly expanded with the use of aerial photography in the 1960s and early 1970s.

[14] Over seventy are known in the British Isles,[7] and they are one of the most common types of early Neolithic site in western Europe.

[4][5] Whitehawk Camp lies on the Upper Chalk, to the east of central Brighton, on a saddle between two slight rises.

It was found to date to the Bronze Age,[17][18][1] though Russell suggested it might have been originally cut as part of the Neolithic site, and later recut and extended.

[30] The high volume of pottery of this type found supports the conclusion that the site was heavily used or visited during this period.

[43] The earliest Ordnance Survey map of the area, published in 1876, shows only two of the concentric ditches, overlapped by the racecourse; later maps show development over the following decades, including allotment gardens, and a stable block for the racecourse, without archaeological intervention.

[44][45] Whitehawk Camp was listed as a scheduled monument in 1923,[46] but the designation did not yet provide the site with legal protection against development.

[47][48] A plan to lay out football pitches on the site led to the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club, among others, protesting against the proposed development, and the club decided to excavate part of the site, "both to determine the date of the camp and to impress upon the public the importance of its preservation".

[61] Williamson considered that the ditches showed no evidence of having been lived in[61] (as an early theory about causewayed enclosures suggested, and as Curwen believed as late as 1954)[7][62] but instead appeared to have been used as rubbish dumps.

[63] When the Brighton Racecourse decided to extend the pulling-up ground of the course, permission was granted with the requirement that the affected part of the site must be excavated before the work was done.

[64] In the fourth ditch, a platform of unexcavated chalk was found that contained a hole about 2 feet (0.6 m) deep, in which lay the skeleton of a roe deer.

[65] Excavation of the third ditch revealed post-holes that appeared to indicate an entrance into the enclosure, two of the holes probably supporting gateposts.

One seemed to have been simply laid in the ditch rather than in a grave dug for the purpose; this skeleton, of a woman probably between 25 and 30 years of age, was found with a fossilized sea urchin, Echinocorys scutatus.

[68][69] The third ditch also contained multiple fragments of bone from human skulls, three of which showed signs of charring; Curwen commented that "It is difficult to avoid the view that these may be relics of cannibalism".

[71] Above the Neolithic occupation layer some Bronze Age pottery sherds were found, some of which were characteristic of the Beaker culture.

[73] A review of the snail shells found in the ditches agreed with the 1929 analysis: conditions must have been much damper at the time of the occupation, with heavier rainfall and a higher water table.

[75][76] In 1935, plans for a road to cross the site again required permission from the Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and arrangements were made for Curwen to lead another excavation.

[84] The Neolithic pottery sherds and the flint tools found were similar to those found during the previous season,[85] and reviews of the animal remains and the snail shells came to the same conclusions as before: the bones were mostly of oxen, with some sheep, pig, goat, and deer, and the snail shells indicated that the climate must have been wetter during the Neolithic.

Russell also cleared a strip of ground extending south from the ditch, along the path of one of the intended roads of the development.

It was continuous throughout the length excavated, though one section was left untouched for safety reasons as an access road used for the construction project ran across the ditch at that point.

The only features of archaeological interest were a 19th-century bottle dump and some soil layers that might have come from a collapsed earth bank that was part of the fourth circuit of the main site.

[88] Whitehawk Camp was one of the sites included in Gathering Time, a project to reanalyze the radiocarbon dates of nearly 40 causewayed enclosures, using Bayesian analysis.

[78][94] A magnetometer survey found that the ditches had collected modern rubbish to the point that they could no longer be detected on the surface, but were still identifiable as "arcs of magnetic disturbance".

[44] Other activities included the development of an online digital game, Stone Age Quest, intended to teach children about Whitehawk Camp and the British Neolithic.

[96] The camp has featured in the local Brighton Museum & Art Gallery; a film installation about the site was shown in 2016,[97] and, in 2018, the reconstructed face of the woman whose remains were found in the 1930s excavations was shown as part of a broader historical exhibition on the past inhabitants of Brighton.