Pre-contact
The area known today as Montreal had been inhabited by indigenous peoples for some 8,000 years, while the oldest known artifact found in Montreal proper is about 4,000 years old. About 1000 CE, nomadic Iroquoian and other peoples around the Great Lakes began to adopt the cultivation of maize and more settled lifestyles. Some settled along the fertile St. Lawrence River, where fishing and hunting in nearby forests supported a full diet. By the 14th century, the people had built fortified villages similar to those described by Cartier on his later visit.
Historians and anthropologists have had many theories about the people encountered by Cartier, as well as the reasons for their disappearance from the valley about 1580. Since the 1950s, archeological and linguistic comparative studies have established many facts about the people. They are now called the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and recognized by scholars as distinct from other Iroquoian-language people, such as the Huron or Iroquois of the Haudenosaunee, although sharing some cultural characteristics. Their language has been called Laurentian, a distinct branch of the family.
Read more about this topic: History Of Montreal