 The name of the country of Canada is probably derived from the Iroquoian word "kanata," which means village or settlement.For years historians, archeologists and related scholars debated the identity of the Iroquoian cultural group in the St. Lawrence valley which Jacques Cartier and his crew recorded encountering in 1535–36 at the villages of "Stadacona" and "Hochelaga".An increasing amount of archaeological evidence collected since the 1950s has settled some of the debate.