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Administrative Draft Environmental Impact Report Gill Medical Center Project 4.7.1.2 Ethnography The Project Area lies just north of Bear Creek, within the territorial boundaries of the Penutian-speaking Miwok. The Miwok people have been divided by anthropologists into four regional groups:the Bay Miwok, Coast Miwok, Plains Miwok, and the Sierra Miwok. The Project Area is in the southern portion of the Plains Miwok territory, which includes land in the Central Valley North of Bear Creek along the Mokelumne, Cosumnes, and Sacramento rivers (Levy 1978). Miwok settlement and subsistence patterns were coordinated with the seasonal ripening of plant foods and the movements and migration of game animals.Valley flooding may have induced certain species, such as elk, antelope, and bears, to migrate to higher ground in the lower valley foothill belt of the Sierra. Anadromous fish, such as steelhead and salmon, migrated up the main rivers and tributaries (Levy 1978). The primary political unit was the tribe(et(Kroeber 1932) with a range of 100 to 300 people (Levy 1978). Plains Miwok used semi-subterranean earth roundhouses were constructed for ceremonial purposes.After the death of a chief, the roundhouse would be burned as part of the Miwok mourning ceremony (Levy 1978). 4.7.1.3 Regional History The first European to visit California was Spanish maritime explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was sent north by the Viceroy of New Spain (Mexico) to look for the Northwest Passage. Cabrillo visited San Diego Bay, Catalina Island, San Pedro Bay, and the northern Channel Islands.The English adventurer Francis Drake visited the Miwok Native American group at Drake's Bay or Bodega Bay in 1579. Sebastian Vizcaino explored the coast as far north as Monterey in 1602. He reported that Monterey was an excellent location for a port. Colonization of California began with the Spanish Portola land expedition. The expedition, led by Captain Gaspar de Portola of the Spanish army and Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan missionary, explored the California coast from San Diego to the Monterey Bay Area in 1769. As a result of this expedition, Spanish missions to convert the native population, presidios (forts), and pueblos (towns) were established. The Franciscan missionary friars established 21 missions in Alta California (the area north of Baja California) beginning with Mission San Diego de Alcala in 1769 and ending with the Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma established in 1823.The Spanish took little interest in the area and did not establish any missions or settlements in the Central Valley. After Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, what is now California became the Mexican province of Alta California with its capital at Monterey. In 1827, American trapper Jedediah Smith traveled along the Sacramento River and into the San Joaquin Valley to meet other trappers of his company who were camped there, but no permanent settlements were established by the fur trappers. The Mexican government closed the missions in the 183Os and former mission lands, as well as previously unoccupied areas, were granted to retired soldiers and other Mexican citizens for use as cattle ranches. Much of the land along the coast and in the interior valleys became part of Mexican land grants or "ranchos". During the Mexican period there were small towns at San Francisco (then known as Yerba Biological Resources 4.7-2 October 2021