The expedition of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo spotted San Nicolas Island in 1543, but they did not land or make any notes about the inhabitants.

[4] By that time, the population appeared to have declined significantly, likely due in part to Spanish missionary recruitment efforts, known to have relocated people from the other Channel Islands to the mainland.

[6] In 2009, two Nicoleño redwood boxes were found eroding from a sea cliff by University of Oregon archaeologist Jon Erlandson, with a whale rib marker on top of them.

Several similar enclosures were still standing at the time, and another type of structure, made of brush walls supported by whale ribs, was also found.

Like other California natives, the Nicoleño were apparently skilled basket weavers, and Juana Maria is described as making four different shapes.

His team uncovered numerous artifacts from surface sites, assumed to be from a later period of Nicoleño culture, as the island's climate is not well suited for preservation.

Artifacts collected by these early visitors include grass matting and clothing fragments, bone knives and fishhooks, and soapstone fish and bird effigies.

[11] Nicoleño culture was entirely dependent on the ocean for sustenance, as the island was home to only four types of land animals, none of which were valuable for food.

The island is home to a large abundance of fish and sea mammals, as well as birds, which the Nicoleño were skilled at catching.