When the words “California history” are uttered, many
immediately conjure images of Spanish missions, hardy miners or
bold pioneers linking wagon trains as they trundle over the
Sierra Nevada crest. Such images evoke the European settlement
of the state, but the history of the human habitation of
California extends significantly further into the past, when a
complex and diverse civilization, comprised by dozens of Native
American tribes, occupied the many distinct geographical areas
of the Golden State. In the Yuba watershed, the Nisenan people
settled the area thousands of years ago. Hunter and gatherers,
the tribe relied heavily on the acorn as a staple of their diet,
supplementing it with protein supplied by the salmon that
navigated the unbridled free-flowing Yuba, along with deer and
other native creatures, said Robert Bettinger, a professor of
Anthropology at University of California, Davis. Many people are
more familiar with the term Maidu in reference to local
indigenous people, but the it refers to a