Editing Fortification (section)

===Africa===
The entire city of [[Kerma]] in [[Nubia]] (present day Sudan) was encompassed by fortified walls surrounded by a ditch. Archeology has revealed various Bronze Age bastions and foundations constructed of stone together with either baked or unfired brick.<ref>{{cite book| last = Bianchi| first = Robert Steven| title = Daily Life of the Nubians| year = 2004| publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group| isbn = 978-0-313-32501-4| page = 83 }}</ref>

The [[walls of Benin]] are described as the world's second longest man-made structure, as well as the most extensive earthwork in the world, by the ''Guinness Book of Records, 1974''.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Henry Louis |last1=Gates |first2=Anthony |last2=Appiah |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |publisher=Basic Civitas Books |date=1999 |page=97 |isbn=0195170555}}</ref><ref>Osadolor, pp. 6–294</ref> The walls may have been constructed between the thirteenth and mid-fifteenth century CE<ref name="Ogundiran">{{cite journal |last1=Ogundiran |first1=Akinwumi |title=Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (ca. 2000 B.C.–A.D. 1900): Archaeological Perspectives |journal=Journal of World Prehistory |date=June 2005 |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=133–168|doi=10.1007/s10963-006-9003-y |s2cid=144422848 }}</ref> or, during the first millennium CE.<ref name="Ogundiran"/><ref name="MacEachern">{{cite journal |last1=MacEachern |first1=Scott |title=Two thousand years of West African history |url=https://www.academia.edu/831918 |journal=African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction |date=January 2005 |publisher=Academia}}</ref> Strong citadels were also built other in areas of Africa. [[History of the Yoruba people|Yorubaland]] for example had several sites surrounded by the full range of earthworks and ramparts seen elsewhere, and sited on ground. This improved defensive potential—such as hills and ridges. Yoruba fortifications were often protected with a double wall of trenches and ramparts, and in the Congo forests concealed [[Ditch (fortification)|ditches]] and paths, along with the main works, often bristled with rows of sharpened stakes. Inner defenses were laid out to blunt an enemy penetration with a maze of defensive walls allowing for entrapment and [[crossfire]] on opposing forces.<ref name="Robert July p. 11-39">July, pp. 11–39</ref>

A military tactic of the [[Ashanti Empire|Ashanti]] was to create powerful log [[stockade]]s at key points. This was employed in later wars against the [[British Empire|British]] to block British advances. Some of these fortifications were over a hundred yards long, with heavy parallel tree trunks. They were impervious to destruction by artillery fire. Behind these stockades, numerous Ashanti soldiers were mobilized to check enemy movement. While formidable in construction, many of these strongpoints failed because Ashanti guns, gunpowder and bullets were poor, and provided little sustained killing power in defense. Time and time again British troops overcame or bypassed the stockades by mounting old-fashioned bayonet charges, after laying down some covering fire.<ref>The Ashanti campaign of 1900, (1908) By Sir Cecil Hamilton Armitage, Arthur Forbes Montanaro, (1901) Sands and Co. pp. 130–131</ref>

Defensive works were of importance in the tropical African Kingdoms. In the [[Kingdom of Kongo]] field fortifications were characterized by trenches and low earthen embankments. Such strongpoints ironically, sometimes held up much better against European cannon than taller, more imposing structures.<ref name="Thornton, op. cit">Thornton, pp. 22–39</ref>