Northeast Indian

Northeast Indian, member of any of the Native American peoples living at the time of European contact in the area roughly bounded in the north by the transition from predominantly deciduous forest to the taiga, in the east by the Atlantic Ocean, in the west by the Mississippi River valley, and in the south by an arc from the present-day North Carolina coast northwest to the Ohio River and thence southwest to its confluence with the Mississippi River. The Northeast culture area comprises a mosaic of temperate forests, meadows, wetlands, waterways, and coastal zones.

European explorers and colonizers of the 16th century noted that the region was occupied by many different groups, each of which was a member of either the Algonquian, Iroquoian, or Siouan language families. As with linguistically related groups elsewhere (e.g., the French, Italian, and Spanish peoples within the Romance language family), each Native American language family comprised a number of distinct peoples. In discussions of indigenous North American peoples, the Northeast and Southeast culture areas are sometimes combined and referred to as the Eastern Woodlands; this term is sometimes confused with that of the Eastern Woodland cultures, which designates a group of prehistoric societies rather than a culture area per se.