The upper gorge area of New River Gorge National River is a broad section where the river is wide, unlike the steep V-shaped canyon downstream of Sandstone Falls. As the New River cut through this landscape, it left behind level land along its banks, and this valley drew human inhabitants for thousands of years. The earliest people were hunter-gatherers who moved with the seasons on the trail of game animals. They were followed by early woodland tribes who cultivated fields and built palisaded villages. The land later became often shared and sometimes contested hunting grounds of the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Iroquois Indians.