Native Americans settled the San Francisco Bay Area before the end of the last Ice Age flooded the river valley that became San Francisco Bay about 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe lived in villages along freshwater creeks on the Peninsula and in the East Bay for more than 10,000 years. At the time of Spanish colonization, the closest community to the Stanford Redwood City site was known as Lamchin. The site lay at the margins of the marsh and would have been a good place for hunting tule elk and waterfowl and collecting tule reeds and other marsh plants. The Muwekma Ohlone used tule reeds for many purposes, including making boats for travel on the Bay because the reeds float and thatching houses because of their insulating quality. Muwekma Ohlone people live in modern houses today, but continue to teach their children traditional cultural knowledge about their ancestral homeland. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe also supports Stanford University's educational mission through collaborations with Jasper Ridge, the Educational Farm, the Archealogy Center and the Native American Cultural Center.