ABSTRACT
When the first Europeans caught an onshore breeze and drifted from the Pacific into the bays of what is now central California in 1542, they found a land inhabited by forty different groups of hunter-gatherers. It was one of the densest populations of Native Americans on the continent, with some ten thousand people speaking some one hundred languages. Wild foods were well managed and abundant, with people making use of marine, seashore, river, grassland and forest resources during different seasons of the year. They had long learned how to leach the bitter tannins out of acorns and horse chestnuts, which were an important source of carbohydrates and fat, alongside pinion nuts and salmon. Local people sometimes collectively called themselves the Ohlone, and through bonds of trade and marriage had peacefully coexisted for thousands of years. There was no personal land ownership, though individuals did have their own tools, clothing and hunting weapons. 1
