A round barrow cemetery is a group of five or more closely spaced prehistoric round barrows comprising examples of one or more of the following classes: bowl barrows, fancy barrows, pond barrows and ring cairns. Other possible components include urnfields and flat graves. The spacing of barrows within a round barrow cemetery varies considerably, but few barrows will be over 150m from their nearest neighbour; most will be less than 100m apart. The largest cemeteries contain up to about 30 barrows.

Round barrow cemeteries may be recognized as groups of upstanding barrows, cropmarks representing distinctive components of flattened barrows (eg. ring-ditches), or a combination of the two.

In upland areas round barrow cemeteries are sometimes confused with cairnfields or groups of stone hut circles, while in lowland Britain the problems associated with identifying individual ring-ditches as components of round barrows (various classes) applies also to groups of ring ditches which might be round barrow cemeteries. In all cases close attention to the nature of the components and the overall lay-out of the site is necessary when identify round barrow cemeteries.

Specifically excluded from the class of round barrow cemetery are the clusters of less than five round barrows (single or mixed classes), widely scattered groups of round barrows sometimes referred to as "area cemeteries", groups of square barrows of Iron Age date found in Humberside and North Yorkshire, the grave-mound clusters of Romano-British and Saxon date in eastern England, and groups of entrance graves. Also excluded are single round barrows (usually bowl barrows) used over a long period of time and therefore of several phases.

Present evidence suggests that round barrow cemeteries represent the accumulation of successive burial monuments within a restricted area over a period of time. As such, their function may overlap with that of other monument classes.