![]() A wooden stockade with a series of watchtowers or bastions at regular intervals formed a 2-mile-long (3.2 km) enclosure around Monk's Mound and the Grand Plaza. ![]() A prominent example is the Cahokia Mounds site in Collinsville, Illinois. Many settlements of the native Mississippian culture of the Midwestern United States used palisades. Archeological evidence of such palisades has been found at numerous 15th and 16th-century sites in both Ontario, Canada, and in New York, United States. Within the palisades the peoples lived in communal groups in numerous longhouses, sometimes in communities as large as 2,000 people. The Iroquoian peoples, who coalesced as tribes around the Great Lakes, often defended their settlements with palisades. Precolumbian North America The Kincaid site, a Mississippian culture palisaded settlement in southern Illinois In contrast, the Romans used smaller and easier to carry stakes which were placed closer together, making them more difficult to uproot. This made it easy for enemies to uproot them and create a large enough gap in which to enter. The Greek stakes were too large to be easily carried and were spaced too far apart. The Roman historian Livy describes the Greek method as being inferior to that of the Romans during the Second Macedonian War. Often, a palisade would be constructed around a castle as a temporary wall until a permanent stone wall could be erected.īoth the Greeks and Romans created palisades to protect their military camps. However, because they were wooden constructions they were also vulnerable to fire and siege weapons. They proved to be effective protection for short-term conflicts and were an effective deterrent against small forces. Since they were made of wood, they could often be quickly and easily built from readily available materials. Palisades were an excellent option for small forts or other hastily constructed fortifications. As a defensive structure, palisades were often used in conjunction with earthworks. The height of a palisade ranged from around a metre to as high as 3–4 m. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were driven into the ground and sometimes reinforced with additional construction. ![]() Typical construction consisted of small or mid-sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with as little free space in between as possible. Palisade derives from pale, from the Latin word pālus, meaning stake, specifically when used side by side to create a wood defensive wall. Reconstruction of a palisade in a Celtic village at St Fagans National History Museum, Wales Reconstruction of a medieval palisade in GermanyĪ palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. For other uses, see Palisade (disambiguation).
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