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What was their strongest common tie that differentiates these peoples from the settlers that followed them ?

The strongest tie these people had in common was their relationship to the land. Each tribe developed practices for sustainable living – ways of living that were an intelligent solution to ensuring their own survival, and the survival of future generations. The backcountry area of the state accounts for at least 50% of its square miles, and the native peoples understood the uses for the different backcountry areas very well.

The men visited the deepest areas of the backcountry in small groups for special annual hunting trips that young boys trained to someday be able to join. In these trips they traveled to find their game, but did not build shelters for an extended stay.

Many foothill or coastal villages divided into family groups and made seasonal camps with shelters for weeks or a few months to gather and prepare foods only found in these more remote location. Others did the reverse, they lived in the backcountry as their primary home during spring, summer and fall, and only left their backcountry home once heavy snows were due and it was wiser to move down to the lower foothills for warmer winter weather.

What ever their hunting and gathering patterns, these earliest Californians lived year round in a completely natural environment that we today would consider an untouched wilderness in the mountains, meadows, and valleys, and beside the streams, springs or lakes that provided them with fresh, pure water.

For the early Californians, it would have been an unthinkable stupidity to pollute the rivers they relied on, or to cut down miles and miles of forest that was the protective shelter for the animals, foods, and pleasant solitude they relied on for their daily well being –and that they knew was essential to the survival of future generations. Unlike the American and European settlers who eventually came onto these lands, the early Antive Americans lived on the land lightly, in no way permanently altered the eaerth or the rivers, and understood that respecting nature was a wise gesture since it was upon nature that they depended for survival in the most real physical sense, and also as the basis of their religions.

Discuss among yourselves what the main natural water bodies are nearest to your school. Find out what condition they are in, and why. Report back to us what you find out.