A fortified place or position prepared for defensive or protective purposes and usually surrounded by a ditch, rampart, and parapet. Forts were first built on hilltops, from late Neolithic to Roman times. Even farmhouses had earthworks of ditch, rampart, and wooden stockade built against raiding parties. At first, stockades were built on hilltops without massive earthworks. The origins of fortification in the Greek and Roman world were probably influenced by eastern Mediterranean civilizations and were in the major cities of the Greek Bronze Age. In ancient days, fortifications hindered the best attacking troops for months and even years.