From the beginning of the tribe’s 16th-century arrival in what is now Humboldt County, Mattole villages were essentially collective groups of families settling in close proximity over winter months. For the most part however, the Mattole people would travel in single family bands where necessary according to food abundance and better climate conditions, an easy feat with California’s many microclimates. As warmer seasons set in the Mattole Valley, the Mattole would separate into their primary familial groups, becoming gatherers of vegetation more—so than hunters as they would in colder months. As James Roscoe observed, "the simple family was by far the single most important social unit in Mattole society."