Ring Ditch
A ring ditch is a ditch with a circular plan. Potentially very similar to a Circular Enclosure.
A ring ditch may be interrupted once making it penannular or several times making it a causewayed ring ditch. The ditch itself can be metres wide and deep enclosing an area of 5-50 m in diameter. Features comprising multiple concentric rings of ditches are a rare type of ritual or funerary monument, dating to the Later Neolithic or Early Bronze age.
These types of monuments are often not visible at ground level due to their scale and are identified from earth observation data. In excavation, they are often interpreted as ploughed out Bronze Age round barrows where only the evidence of the exterior ditch remains.
As with many types of earthwork monument, ring ditches can be difficult to assess. The monument type is based purely on form and can be used along with annotations to describe ditch type monuments with circular plans.
What to look for:
- Circular in plan, either continuous or interrupted
- Associated enclosures or field systems
