Describe how California's Native nations built extensive trade networks and used local materials, including tule reeds, to build boats suited to their waters.
Not every California nation built ocean-going plank canoes like the Chumash tomol. In the marshes and lakes of the Central Valley, the Bay Area, and places like Clear Lake, nations such as the Pomo and Ohlone built lighter boats from tule, a tall reed that grows thickly in shallow water. Bundles of dried tule were tied tightly together into a raft-like canoe -- not watertight like a wooden hull, but light, easy to build, and perfect for slipping through marshes to fish and gather.
California's nations were also connected by trade long before any outsider arrived. Obsidian, a sharp volcanic glass useful for tools and arrowheads, came from a few specific places like the area near Mono Lake and was traded hundreds of miles in every direction. Strings of clamshell disk beads worked almost like money in many trade networks, exchanged alongside salt, dried fish, acorns, furs, and baskets. Trade routes crossed mountains and deserts, meaning nations who never met face to face were still connected through the goods that passed hand to hand between them.
Mastery looks like: They can explain the difference between a tomol and a tule boat and name at least two goods traded across California before contact.
Common stumbles: Assuming all California Native boats were the same; picturing trade as only local instead of stretching hundreds of miles.