A 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.
Typical construction consisted of small or mid-sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with as little free space in between as possible.
[citation needed] 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.
A wooden stockade with a series of watchtowers or bastions at regular intervals formed a three-kilometre-long (2 mi) enclosure around Monk's Mound and the Grand Plaza.
The English settlements in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), Cupids, Newfoundland (1610) and Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620) were all originally fortifications that were surrounded by palisades.
In addition, colonial architecture used vertical palings as the walls of houses, in what was called poteaux en terre construction.
[citation needed] A "palanka" was a type of wooden fort constructed of palisades, built by the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans during the 16th and 17th centuries.
They could be erected for a variety of reasons such as protecting a strategically valuable area or a town[4] Some palankas evolved into larger settlements.
Its manual on safety includes guidance, such as avoiding having vegetation alongside the fence, as this allows criminals to make an unseen breach.