The famous Gay Head Cliffs lay bare to geologists the history of the past hundred million years. Traveling the South Road to Gay Head, one goes over low hills and valleys cut by streams that ran off melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age. The first humans probably came here before the Vineyard was an island. It is thought that they arrived after the ice was gone, but before the melting glaciers in the north raised the sea level enough to separate Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket from the mainland. Indian camps that carbon date to about 2270 B.C. have been uncovered on the Island.
Legend surrounds the much later arrival of the first white men.
In 1524 Verrazzano sailed past and named the Island Louisa. The Indians called it Noepe. Other explorers gave different names, but the one that stuck was given in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, who named it for the wild grapes and for one of his little daughters. Within 40 years of Gosnold's visit, all of New England was being claimed and divided up by Europeans. Thomas Mayhew, a Bay Colony businessman, bought Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands for forty pounds.