A causewayed enclosure is a roughly circular or oval shaped area
bounded by one or more lines of banks and ditches. The ditches are particularly distinctive because they were usually constructed as a series of elongated pits, with narrow blocks of unexcavated bedrock forming a causeway between each segment. Inside the line of ditches may be a bank or wall of soil and/or stone, but in contrast to the ditches, these ramparts are usually continuous except where pierced by entrances.
Causewayed enclosures are found widely over southern and midland England, with a few possible examples in the north. They are thought to have been used variously as settlements, sometimes seasonal, and ceremonial sites.
Most causewayed enclosures are fairly distinctive because of their ground plan, but those with poorly developed segmentation of the ditches may be confused with later prehistoric enclosures, especially in cases where there is no evidence from excavation or fieldsurvey to indicate the date of the site. Causewayed enclosures can be distinguished from segmented ring ditches and pir circles by their greater size, and from henges with segmented ditches by their ground plan. Natural banding in certain types of bedrock can sometimes look deceptively like a causewayed enclosure when seen from the air.