Yosemite at a Glance:
The First People

Archaeologists have found evidence suggesting that people traveled through the Yosemite region as early as 7,000 or 8,000 years ago, after the retreat of the last major glaciers. The Yosemite area, including Yosemite Valley, probably wasn't inhabited on a permanent basis until about 4,000 years ago.

Geology
Waterfalls

The Ahwahnichi

Miwok people believe that they were created here; anthropologists think that the ancestors of the Southern Sierra Miwok moved into the Yosemite area from the Sierra Nevada foothills around A.D. 1000.

They called themselves the Ahwahnichi and the valley Ahwahni, a Southern Miwok word meaning “place like a gaping mouth.” At one time, there may have been up to several hundred Indian people in Yosemite Valley (Ahwahni) during the summer.

The Miwok people living west of Yosemite sometimes referred to residents of Yosemite Valley as Yohemite. The word Yosemite is derived from Yohemite, which when translated means “some of them are killers.”