First Human Habitation of California

The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the earliest traces of human habitation in California, dated to about 13,000 years ago during the Wisconsin glaciation.

When this happened

First Human Habitation of California occurred in about 13,000 years ago, during the pre-columbian period of American history.

Where this happened

First Human Habitation of California took place in California. Explore the full history of California and primary source records from this era.

Indigenous peoples had inhabited North America for at least 15,000 years before European contact, developing complex societies across every region of the continent. The Mississippian culture, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, reached its peak around 1100 AD with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 — larger than contemporary London. The Ancestral Puebloans built multi-story stone complexes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Iroquois Confederacy, formed between roughly 1450 and 1600, united five nations under a constitution that influenced later American democratic thinking. Across the eastern woodlands, the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Southwest, hundreds of distinct nations maintained sophisticated trade networks, agricultural systems, and governance structures. European contact beginning in the late 15th century introduced epidemic disease — smallpox, measles, influenza — which devastated Indigenous populations by an estimated 50 to 90 percent within a century.

Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia: Pre-Columbian history (c. 13,000 BC – 1530 AD).