Glossary: V Terms
La Venta (Mexico)
The important Olmec capital of La Venta is located in the city of Huimanguillo, in the state of Tabasco, Mexico.
Vaihingen (Germany)
Vaihingen is an archaeological site located on the Enz river of Germany, associated with the linearbandkeramik period between about 5300 and 5000 years BC.
Valcamonica (Italy)
Valcamonica is the name of a valley in northern Italy that is home to numerous rock art sites, some as early as the Upper Paleolithic and into the Iron Age.
Valdivia Culture
Valdivia culture is the name given by archaeologists to the beginnings of settlement life in Ecuador, South America, between about 3500-1500 BC
Valley of the Kings (Egypt)
The Valley of the Kings refers to a long dry valley or wadi running parallel to the Nile River on the west bank opposite Luxor, Egypt.
Vallonet Cave (France)
Vallonet Cave is a paleolithic cave in the maritime Alps of southeastern France, near the Mediterranean coast near Nice.
Vandals
The Vandals were a rowdy people living on the Rhine River in the 5th century AD, who swept through raiding and pillaging most of what is now France and Spain in the space of three years.
Varangerfjord (Norway)
Varangerfjord, an inland waterway in extreme northeastern Norway near the border with Russia, is a region with archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers lifeways during Norway's Younger Stone Age.
Vanilla (Vanilla species)
Vanilla (Vanilla tahitensis, that wonderfully spicy and sweet flavoring, is created from the vanilla orchid, the only edible orchid known.
Varna (Bulgaria)
The Balkan Copper Age cemetery site of Varna is located near the resort town of the same name, on the Black Sea in coastal Bulgaria.
Vathypetro (Greece)
Vathypetro is the name of a small Minoan settlement located about 10 kilometers south of the palace at Knossos on the island of Crete.
Vedbaek (Denmark)
The archaeological site of Vedbaek is an Ertebølle culture Mesolithic cemetery site located in Denmark, with early evidence of social stratification.
Vedic Literature
Vedic literature refers to the earliest texts found in India, four books called the Vedas, which collectively are the basis for the Hindu religion.
Vegas (Ecuador)
The Vegas site is located on the coast of Ecuador and is a semi-sedentary habitation site where fisher-hunter-gatherers lived between about 8000 and 6000 years ago.
Venus Figurines
Venus figurines are the name given to a nearly universal type of art, appearing first in the Upper Paleolithic period between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago.
Vergina (Greece)
The modern city of Vergina is the location of the ancient capital of the Macedonians, callted Aigai.
Verlaine (Belgium)
Verlaine is an archaeological site located within the Geer river valley in the Hesbaye region of central Belgium. T
Vijayanagara (India)
Vijayanagara ("Victory City") was the capital city of the medieval Hindu empire of southern India of Vijayanagara.
Viking History
The Vikings left Scandinavia in the late 8th century AD, bent on raiding the known world for its goods. They ended up settling down in farms throughout Europe, western Russia, Iceland, Greenland and even, for a brief period, Canada.
Viking Hoards
Viking hoard is a stash of (mostly) silver coins, ingots, personal ornaments and fragmented metal left in buried deposits throughout the Viking empire between about AD 800 and 1150.
Vikings
Most of the archaeological investigations undertaken on the Viking Age have been focused on the two hundred years or so the Vikings spent raiding Europe.
Vilhonneur Cave [la Grotte de Vilhonneur] (France)
Vilhonneur Cave is an Upper Paleolithic decorated cave site with associated human remains dated to the Gravettian period.
Villanova Culture
The Villanova Culture is the name given to the early Iron Age predessors of the great Etruscan civilization
Vinca (Serbia)
Vinča is the name of a large tell, located on the Danube River in the Balat Plain about 15 kilometers downstream from Belgrade in what is now Serbia.
Vindija Cave (Croatia)
Vindija Cave is a stratified archaeological site in Croatia, which has several occupations associated with both Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH).
Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman fort built along the border of what is today Scotland and England, about 35 years before Hadrian's wall was begun.
Vindolanda (UK)
Vindolanda is the name of a Roman fortress, constructed at the behest of Agricola in AD 79 after the conquest of northern Britain
Vindolanda Tablets
The Vindolanda Tablets refers to hundreds of hand-written texts on slivers of wood, inscribed by Roman soldiers in the first and second centuries AD.
Viracochapampa (Peru)
Viracochapampa is the name of a Huari empire outpost that was begun on a main Andean roadway, but never finished.
Viru Valley Project
The Virú Valley was the location of one of the earliest (if not the earliest) settlement pattern studies.
Vis (Russia)
The Vis sites are two peat bogs in the Vychegda basin of Russia, in which have been found the remains of worked wooden objects, including wooden skis and sledge runners.
Visigoths
The Visigoths were one of the Germanic kingdoms (such as Ostrogoths and Franks), who eventually spelled the end of the Roman empire.
Vitrified Forts
There are, believe it or not, some 200 hillforts and other archaeological sites in the world which have been vitrified--exposed to heat so extreme that part of the buildings are converted to glass-like substances.
Vuelta Limon (Mexico)
The archaeological site of Vuelta Limón is located about 20 kilometers from the Pacific coast of the state of Chiapas, on the banks of the Rio Cacaluta.