Editing Monterey Park, California (section)

===Early history===
For at least seven thousand years<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/intro.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020529030242/http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/intro.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 29, 2002 |title=introduction |publisher=Lausd.k12.ca.us |access-date=August 17, 2010}}</ref> the land was populated by the [[Tongva people|Tongva]] ([[Gabrielino]]) Native Americans. The Tongva lived in dome like structures with thatched exteriors, with an open smoke hole for ventilation and light at the top.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/house.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120803140800/http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/house.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 3, 2012 |title=Housing |publisher=Lausd.k12.ca.us |access-date=August 17, 2010}}</ref>  Both sexes wore long hair styles and tattooed their bodies. During warm weather the men wore few clothes, and the women wore minimal skirts made of animal hides. During the cold weather they would wear animal skin capes and occasionally wore sandals made from hide or yucca fiber.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/cloth.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021227103238/http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/cloth.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 27, 2002 |title=clothing |publisher=Lausd.k12.ca.us |access-date=August 17, 2010}}</ref>  With the arrival of the Spaniards, [[Old World]] diseases killed off many of the Tongva, and by 1870 very few Native-Americans had survived. In the early 19th century the area was part of the [[Mission San Gabriel Arcángel]] mission system and later the [[Rancho San Antonio (Lugo)|Rancho San Antonio]].