 Since the 1950s, historians and anthropologists have used archeological and linguistic evidence to develop a consensus that the people formed a distinct ethnic group, whom they have called St. Lawrence Iroquoians.They spoke Laurentian and were separate from the powerful Iroquois confederacy of nations that developed in present-day New York and Pennsylvania along the southern edges of the Great Lakes.Their disappearance by 1600 is believed to be due to attacks and decimation from the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois League; they stood to gain the most by getting control of the hunting grounds along the St. Lawrence River and dominating the fur trade route on the river above "Tadoussac," which was under Montagnais control.