Palisade Wall

Palisade Wall. Fort Clark State Historic Site. You are now looking at a portion of the former palisade wall and the ditch that surrounded the Mandan village of Mih-tutta-hang-kush. A palisade is a row of closely spaced vertical posts set together to form a protective wall. Archaeologists belief that this ditch was inside the palisade wall. At earlier Mandan villages, the ditch was on the outside of the palisade wall. , Besides building palisades to protect their village, the Mandans also located their villages in settings that were easy to defend. Before the Missouri River changed course, Mih-tutta-hang-kush was situated on a bend in the river. The palisade wall protected the south and west sides, while the steep river bank protected the north and east sides. , Catlin describes the palisade that surrounded the village as: , a strong piquet, and a ditch inside of it, of three or four feet in depth. The piquet is composed of timbers of a foot or more in diameter, and eighteen feet high, set firmly in the ground at sufficient distance from each other to admit of guns and other missiles to be fired between them. The ditch (unlike that of civilized modes of fortifications) is inside of the piquet, in which their warriors screen their bodies for the view and weapons of their enemies, whilst they are reloading and discharging their weapons through the piquets.