"[4] In the late 20th century, historian Alwyn Ruddock of the University of London, one of the world's foremost experts on John Cabot's expeditions to the New World, suggested that a group of reformed Augustinian friars, led by the high-ranking Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, accompanied Cabot on his second voyage to reach North America in 1498.

If true, Carbonear would have been the first Christian settlement of any kind in North America, and the site of the oldest, and only, medieval church built on the continent.

[5] Evan Jones of the University of Bristol is leading further investigations of Dr Ruddock's claims to find additional evidence with colleagues in what is known as The Cabot Project.

[6] By the time the British began permanent colonization of the island in the early 17th century, the name Carbonear was already being used by the seasonal fishermen familiar with the area.

At about this time, legend tells of an Irish princess of the O'Conner family, Sheila NaGeira, who settled in Carbonear after being rescued by privateer Peter Easton and marrying his first officer, Gilbert Pike.

When war broke out with France, Carbonear was attacked by French captain Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville during the Avalon Peninsula Campaign.

The citizens survived by retreating to the fortified Carbonear Island, but the town, documented by the French as being "very well-established" and containing properties that were "the best-built in all of Newfoundland", was burned to the ground.

Over the next hundred years, Carbonear was attacked and burned two more times by the French in their attempts to control Newfoundland, and then later by American privateers.

During the Seven Years' War, the French invaded and gained control of the fort, burning its buildings and tossing the cannons over the cliffs in 1762.

The Archaeology of Historic Carbonear Project, carried out by Memorial University of Newfoundland, has conducted summer fieldwork each season since 2011 in the town to reveal its colonial history.

So far, it has found evidence of planter habitation since the late 17th century and of trade with Spain through Bilbao, including a Spanish coin minted in Peru.