National Park Service Canyonlands U.S. Department of the Interior Canyonlands National Park

Cultural,Hisio

The cultural history of Canyonlands spans thousands of years. Over time, different groups moved in and out of the area in concert with the availability of natural resources. The Peekaboo rock art panel in the Needles District(shown above) includes the work of two cultures: archaic hunter-gatherers and ancestral Puebloans.

Native Americans Hunter-Gatherers Over time, growing populations at Mesa Humans first visited Canyonlands over Verde caused a search for suitable land all 10,000 years ago. Nomadic groups of hunter- over southeast Utah's canyon country. By gatherers roamed throughout the southwest A.D. 1200, large groups had moved into the from 8,000 B.C. to 500 B.C. Living off the Needles District, especially in Salt Creek land, these people depended on the avail Canyon. However,granaries and dwellings ability of wild plants and animals for their used by the ancestral Puebloans are scattered -survival. They^o-not appear-to have stayed throu^out the park; Examples-of these in any one area for very long. They left structures can be seen at Roadside Ruin in little in the way of artifacts and didn't build the Needles, Aztec Butte on the Island in the homes or other lasting structures. However, Sky and along many backcountry trails. the hunter-gatherers during this time cre ated a great deal of intriguing rock art. Some For many years, changing weather patterns of the best examples of their art, known as made growing crops more and more difficult. "Barrier Canyon Style," remain on the cliff Around A.D. 1300,the ancestral Puebloans walls of Horseshoe Canyon. left the area and migrated south. Their de scendants include the people living in mod Ancestral Puebloans and the Fremont ern pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona like Roughly two thousand years ago, the hunter- Acoma,Zuni, and the Hopi Mesas. gatherers began to rely more on domesticat Detail from the Great Gallery rock ed animals and plants for food. These early Utes, Navajos and Paiutes art panel in Horseshoe Canyon farmers are called the ancestral Puebloan Before the ancestral Puebloans left, other (formerly known as Anasazi) and Fremont groups appeared in the area. The Ute and people. They grew maize, beans and squash, Paiute cultures may have arrived as early as and kept dogs and turkeys. In order to tend A.D. 800. The Navajo arrived from the north their crops, they lived year-round in villages sometime after A.D. 1300. All three groups like those preserved at Mesa Verde National still live here today. These cultures initially Park. Though the two groups overlapped, lived more of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle than the Fremont lived mostly in central Utah, the ancestral Puebloans. Their use and ex while the ancestral Puebloans occupied the ploration of the Canyonlands area appears Four Corners region. These cultures can be to have been minimal. Granary built by the ancestral distinguished by their different tools, pottery Puebloans and rock art.

Europeans Exploration route that passed through Moab like the For early European explorers, Canyonlands highway does today. offered more of an impediment to travel than a destination. In the 1770s, the Spanish The first Europeans to explore Canyonlands priests Escalante and Dominguez circled the were probably American and French trap area, looking for a route between New Mexi pers searching western rivers for beaver and co and California. Escalante and Dominguez otter. Pelts from these animals were in great failed, but trappers and traders from Taos demand in the east. One such trapper named and Santa Fe succeeded. In the early 1800s, Denis Julien carved his name,the date and the "Old Spanish Trail" became a well-worn a picture of a boat along the Green River in