California. The land which is the present-day state of California was the most densely populated part of North America before the arrival of white settlers. However, this is only relative to the otherwise sparsely populated continent—it has been estimated that, immediately before the arrival of outsiders, this land was the home to around 300,000 people who formed a bewildering number of different tribes. Up to 100 different tribes, each with its own social structures and often with a unique language, existed as nomadic hunter-gatherers, living in small, temporary, and portable homes of wood
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