Menoken Village was a small community of approximately 30 oval-shaped, earth-covered houses with a prominent fortification system, recently radiocarbon dated to around AD 1200. Once thought to have been a Mandan village occupied at the time of early contact with Euroamericans, archeological studies indicate that it was built and used by Late Plains Woodland peoples, who were primarily hunters and gatherers rather than farming people, and may have numbered 200 individuals. The site is earlier than any settlement that can be linked with certainty to Mandan, Hidatsa, or Arikara peoples in North Dakota, although its inhabitants were probably the ancestors of at least some of these historic village tribes. Its location was carefully chosen for defense, with steep banks to the north and west and the rest of the village protected by a tall wall or palisade and a deep ditch that enclosed almost one and one-half acres in a long arc interrupted by four projecting loops, or bastions. Menoken Village is also notable for its early date, unusual fortification system requiring organized labor and much timber, location along a small stream rather than a major river, and several large oval houses that differ from the later rectangular and circular earthlodge forms.