Combe Hill is a causewayed enclosure, near Eastbourne in East Sussex, on the northern edge of the South Downs. It consists of an inner circuit of ditches and banks, incomplete where it meets a steep slope on its north side, and the remains of an outer circuit. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. The historian Hadrian Allcroft included the site in his 1908 book Earthwork of England, and in 1930 E. Cecil Curwen listed it as a possible Neolithic site in a paper which attempted to provide the first list of all the causewayed enclosures in England. The enclosure has been excavated twice: in 1949, by Reginald Musson, and in 1962, by Veronica Seton-Williams, who used it as a training opportunity for volunteers. Charcoal fragments from Musson's dig were later dated to between 3500 and 3300 BC. Musson also found a large quantity of Ebbsfleet ware pottery in one of the ditches. Seton-Williams found three polished stone axes deposited in another ditch, perhaps not long after it had been dug. The site is only from Butts Brow, another Neolithic enclosure, and the two locations are visible from each other; both sites may have seen Neolithic activity at the same time. Background Combe Hill is a causewayed enclosure, a form of earthwork that was built in northwestern Europe, including the southern British Isles, in the early Neolithic period. Causewayed enclosures are areas that are fully or partially enclosed by ditches interrupted by gaps, or causeways, of unexcavated ground, often with earthworks and palisades in some combination. The use to which these enclosures were put has long been a matter of debate. The causeways are difficult to explain in military terms since they would have provided multiple ways for attackers to pass through the ditches to the inside of the camp, though it was suggested they could have been sally ports for defenders to emerge from and attack a besieging force. Evidence of attacks on some sites support the idea that the enclosures were built as fortified settlements. They may have been seasonal meeting places, used for trading cattle or other goods such as pottery. There