The Viking Age and Kaupang by Viksfjord

The Viking Age was a period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries.^[1][2][3]

Scandinavian (Norse) Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Anatolia.^[4] Additionally, there is evidence to support the Vinland legend that Vikings reached farther west to the North American continent.

Эпоха викингов 

— принятое в государствах Северной Европы обозначение раннего Средневековья, особенно периода с VIII по XI века, когда местные жители — викинги — совершали набеги на сопредельные государства. Следует за германским железным веком (в Швеции — за Вендельским периодом).

Kaupang was a Norse term for market-place. Today, it is generally used as a name of the first town-like market-place in Norway, the Kaupang in Skiringssal, which is located in Tjølling near Larvik in Vestfold. Kaupang was an important merchant and craft center during the Viking period and as yet the first known Norwegian trading outpost.

Kaupang was founded in the 780s and abandoned for unknown reasons in the early 10th century. It was situated on a beach by Viksfjord in Larvik municipality. Documentary sources indicate that the area was an important royal seat in the 700s and 800s.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the site might have been the first proto-urban settlement of some significance in Norway. The excavations which have been conducted at Kaupang have found evidence for a handicraft and commercial center, with around 1,000 inhabitants. The city had diverse craft production and extensive trade with foreign countries. Commodities traded included iron, soapstone and perhaps fish.

 SURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaupang

The Vikings (from Old Norse víkingr) were the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.^[1]

These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Al-Andalus.^[2] This period of Viking expansion – known as the Viking Age – forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe.

Popular conceptions of the Vikings often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and written sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as Germanic noble savages began to take root in the 18th century, and this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.^[3]

The received views of the Vikings as violent brutes or intrepid adventurers owe much to the modern Viking myth which had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations are typically highly clichéd, presenting the Vikings as familiar caricatures.^[3]