The first humans to see Grand Canyon were Paleoindians who traveled large distances in pursuit of megafauna, such as bison and mammoths, around 10,000 years ago. These hunters used large stone points on thrusting spears, moving with game herds and leaving little evidence of their passage. Only one Paleoindian site has been located at Grand Canyon.

As the last ice age receded and megafauna died out, hunters began to rely more on smaller game and plants. During this time period (2,000–9,000 years ago) the Desert Archaic culture roamed the Grand Canyon Region. Archaic hunter-gatherers traveled in groups, moving with the seasons as plants ripened or game animals migrated. They used atlatls (throwing tools) with darts. Remains from this period include flakes from dart points or other stone tools, grinding stones, hearths, basketry, rock shelters, and perhaps the most intriguing archaeological remains in the canyon, rock art and split-twig figurines.

One rock art site on the western end of Grand Canyon bears a number of large anthropomorphs (humanlike figures) painted with reddish pigment, perhaps representing shamans. Split-twig figurines may also have a shamanic element. Often in the shape of deer or bighorn sheep, the figurines have been found in caves in the inner canyon’s Redwall Formation. The figurines were made 2,000–4,000 years ago from a single long piece of wood, usually willow, split down the middle and folded into shape. Some are quite refined, with details that include smaller twigs representing antlers or spears piercing the body of the figurine. Sometimes dung was stuffed inside. Carefully placed in dry caves that have helped preserve them over the millennia, these are not toys but may be totems used to ensure or reenact a successful hunt. Several examples are on display at Tusayan Museum on the South Rim.

Around 3,500 years ago, corn agriculture arrived in the Southwest. Archaic people began experimenting with cultivation to supplement hunting and gathering. They seeded flood plains, which hold moisture longer than other areas. Storage cists were used to protect surplus corn or beans, introduced later. Beans require longer cooking, leading to another innovation, pottery, dating to A.D. 500.

As people began to rely more on agriculture, they became more sedentary, at first building pithouses, partially underground circular structures. Later, they built aboveground pueblos, structures with multiple rooms, including Tusayan Ruin along the South Rim’s Desert View Drive and Walhalla Glades on the North Rim. Both villages were occupied during the summer, linked to the Colorado River via trails leading to Unkar Delta area, where a broad floodplain and lower elevation offered a longer growing season and comfortable winter temperatures.

By A.D. 1000, the Puebloans were building kivas and outdoor plazas. Pottery types indicate trade relationships with people living in the Virgin River area north of the Grand Canyon. Archaeologists identify these and other farmers, potters, and pueblo dwellers in the Four Corners area as a single cultural group, known as Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloan (though not all archaeologists include the Cohonina). Some archaeologists speculate that a combination of internal conflict, drought, and other environmental pressures pushed the Anasazi from their homes, beginning around A.D. 1200. Others suggest that new cultural developments centered around the Hopi Mesas pulled the Puebloans east. In any case, today’s Hopi people are the descendants of the Ancestral Puebloans.

Sometime around A.D. 1300, seminomadic hunter-gatherers moved into the Grand Canyon area from farther west. The Kaibab Paiutes foraged along the North Rim. The Pai or Cerbat used the river corridor, supplementing hunting and gathering with agriculture and trade, and living in seasonal camps evidenced by rock shelters and stone rings where they constructed brush shelters known as wickiups. They roasted agave, a staple food, in stone-lined roasting pits. Cactus buds and blooms, piñon nuts, and berries added to a varied diet. Their descendants, the Havasupai and Hualapai of western Grand Canyon, continued a long trading relationship with the Hopi, while the Paiutes established ties with the Mormon colonists who entered their territories.

The Navajo reservation bordering Grand Canyon to the east is home to the largest American Indian tribe in the U.S. Navajo ancestors, Athabaskan hunter-gatherers, entered the area from the north around A.D. 1400. Highly adaptable, the Navajo learned agriculture from their pueblo neighbors and stock raising from Spanish colonists.