The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 people of the central California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 coast. When Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

 through Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean, along the central coast of California. The bay is south of San Francisco and San Jose, between the cities of Santa Cruz and Monterey....

 to the lower Salinas Valley

Salinas Valley

The Salinas Valley lies south of San Francisco, California.The word "salina" is spanish for salt marsh, salt lake or salt pan.-Geography:The Salinas Valley runs approximately south-east from Salinas towards King City. The valley lends its name to the geologic province in which it's located, the...

. At that time they spoke a variety of languages, the Ohlone languages

Ohlone languages

The Ohlone language family also known as "Costanoan", is a family of languages of the San Francisco Bay Area spoken by the Ohlone peoples. It is a member of the hypothetical Penutian language phylum or stock, and the Utian language family...

, belonging to the Costanoan sub-family of the Utian language

Utian languages

Utian is a family of indigenous languages spoken in the central and north portion of California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke languages in the Utian linguistic group...

 family, which itself belongs to the proposed Penutian language phylum or stock.