The region has been inhabited for about 11,000 years, beginning in the
Paleo-Indian period.[1] Contact between native populations and Europeans occurred as early as 1600 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[4] Indigenous peoples at the time of European contact included the ancestors of the modern St. Francis (
Odanak),
Penobscot,
Passamaquoddy,
Maliseet, and
Miꞌkmaq peoples, along with other
Algonquian speakers referred to by French explorers as
Abenaki,
Etchemin, and
Souriquois.[5]
The French colony of
Acadia occupied roughly the same area.[6]