Around A.D. 1330, a group of people arrived from the Hopi Mesas, 60 miles north, drawn by the lush flood plain of the Little Colorado River. They built a 1200 room village where 750 to 1000 people lived in this pueblo. The people farmed in the flood plain and in the sand dunes, growing corn, beans, squash, and cotton, and they also gathered wild foods such as pigweed, Indian rice grass, cactus and yucca fruits, and piñon nuts. Cotton cloth was exchanged with inhabitants of villages north and west. Research and excavations by Arizona State Museum at Homol'ovi II revealed three plazas, outdoor activity areas, possibly 40 kivas, and living, working, and storage areas. Prior to A.D. 1400, the people of Homol'ovi II, along with others, left the middle Little Colorado River valley. Hopi oral history and archaeological clues suggest that after leaving the Homol'ovi area, they made their way back to their ancestral villages on the Hopi Mesas, and their descendants return periodically to gather wild resources and visit shrines.