A bank barrow is a long sinuous parallel-sided mound of soil and stone, over 150m in length, and usually flanked on either side by a ditch. The length/breadth ratio of the mound is typically in excess of 6:1, and ceremonial or funerary deposits are covered by or contained within the mound. Most are recognized as earthworks, resembling as they do extremely extended long barrows, but the distinctive ditches occasionally permit examples to be identified from aerial photographs.

Bank barrows are sometimes confused with long mounds and cursus. The former can be readily distinguished by their smaller size (< 100m long) and less monumental mounds, the latter by their generally greater length, the absence of a substantial mound, and the fact that the ditches form a complete enclosure. Other possible sources of confusion include fragmented banks forming components of other classes of monuments and the headlands of medieval fields.

Specifically excluded from the class of bank barrows are cursus that have a central bank.

Bank barrows were ceremonial monuments of middle Neolithic date, and as such probably served similar functions to various other contemporary classes of monument, for example long barrows and cursus.