People have lived in northern California for more than 10,000 years. The last wave of pre-Contact migrants, the Ohlone, arrived in the Bay area after AD 500. Even before the Spanish colonized California in the late 18th c. AD, the Santa Clara region was culturally diverse — a cosmopolitan mosaic that continues today.
Ohlone Indians in a Tule Boat in the San Francisco Bay circa 1822 Drawing by Louis Andrevitch Choris