Garden & dry stone
No mortar, just weight and friction. The oldest wall there is.
Dry stone walls hold fields and terraces with nothing but weight and friction — no mortar, no reinforcement, just stones leaning into each other the way they've done for five thousand years.
The rules
foundation the biggest stones, buried, level batter the wall leans back slightly one over two every joint crossed throughs long stones tying the two faces
Why it lasts
A dry stone wall drains itself, flexes with frost, and if a stone falls out you just put it back. Mortared walls crack; dry walls settle. That's why the old field walls are still standing and the modern ones aren't.
