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Soil Investigations for Data Collection in the Delta Initial Study/Proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration 190 3.18.1 Environmental Setting The Study Area includes regions inhabited traditionally by multiple California Native American Tribes. Ethnographic literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century writes that the Nisenan, Miwok, Northern Valley Yokuts, and Patwin/Wintun occupied territories within the Study Area (Kroeber 1925; Kroeber 1929; Wilson and Towne 1978; Johnson 1978; Levy 1978b; Wallace 1978). The Ohlone/Costanoan were reported in the ethnographic literature as originally residing nearby to the west and southwest of the Study Area region (Kroeber 1925; Levy 1978a) but are also relevant to the Study Area. Modern descendants of tribes connected to the Study Area are members of various tribal organizations and were reached out to for the initial study for this Proposed Project (see methodology below). Fundamental limitations to the ethnographic record highlight the importance of tribal consultation in identifying tribal cultural resources. Ethnographically reported boundaries between tribes are one version of territories, and many areas had multiple claimants, such as parts of the Sacramento River Delta where different Miwok and Yokuts groups laid claim in different interviews (Latta 1977:80). It is also important to remember that groups had multiple tribes belonging to them (Kroeber 1925; Latta 1977), and that divisions between groups weren’t as clear cut as presented in published studies, as many tribes shared different practices, including rituals (such as the Kuksu Cult), trade networks, and food ways (Kroeber 1925; Heizer 1978). The categories as laid out are heavily based on linguistic relationships, who was available and willing to be interviewed, and the ethnographer’s individual discretion and understanding. These interviews occurred at a time after Missionization, Mexican occupation, and decades of United States occupation, all of which impacted many California Native Americans and tribes and changed the landscape and knowledge base (Heizer 1978; Field 1992). Archaeologically, people moved and interacted with other tribes regularly and tribal boundaries were not as firm or static as portrayed in the ethnographic studies from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Mobility and large spheres of interaction are evidenced by, among other things, traded artifactual material, cultural patterns crossing ethnographically defined boundaries, and ancient DNA studies (Monroe 2014; Milliken et al. 2007; Rosenthal et al. 2007). Many modern tribes have been working to preserve and revitalize their language and culture and teach it to the younger generations (e.g. Field 1992; Johnson 2019; Yoche Dehe Wintun Nation 2019). Thus, it is important to recognize the primacy of modern tribes in telling their own history and recognizing their own tribal cultural resources. Cultural resources, as discussed in the Cultural Resources Section of this IS/MND, may be tribal cultural resources. This includes historical resources as defined in Public Resources Code Section 5024.1 and 15064.5, unique archaeological resources as defined by Public Resources Code 21083.2, and non-unique archaeological resources (e.g. isolated finds or common resource types). As is discussed in the Cultural Resources Section of this document, the Study Area is particularly sensitive for cultural resources because areas along waterways are a frequent location for archaeological sites, including prehistoric mounds, middens, occupation sites, and human burials. In