CALIFORNIA BRIEF HISTORY

Original Inhabitants

Prehistoric inhabitants of California practiced complex religions, hunted with arrowheads made of flint, and subsisted largely on the abundant available acorns supplemented by numerous small animals; coastal peoples ate fish and shellfish. California has many different local climates. Native houses varied accordingly. Indigenous Californians often lived in small communities of about 150 people whom the Spanish called rancherias. Within the boundaries of present-day California there were once 22 different linguistic families with 135 regional dialects. At the time of European discovery there may have been 100,000 to 150,000 native inhabitants in California, but diseases brought by the Europeans would markedly reduce the population.