With time, tall thin ridges called fins emerge. Fins further erode into pinnacles and spires called hoodoos. These in turn weaken and fall, adding their bright colors to the hills below. Early Native Americans left little to tell us of their use of the plateaus. We know that people have been in the Colorado Plateau region for about 12,000 years, but only random fragments of worked stone tell of their presence near Bryce Canyon.
Artifacts tell a more detailed story of use at lower elevations beyond the park's boundary.
Both Anasazi and Fremont influences are found near the park. The people of each culture left bits of a puzzle to be pieced together by present and future archaeologists. Paiutes lived in the region when Euro-Americans arrived in southern Utah. The Paiutes were living throughout the area when Captain Clarence E. Dutton explored here with John Wesley Powell in the 1870's. Many of today's place names come from this time.