For more than 13,000 years, Native Americans used their familiarity with local plants, minerals, rocks, and animals to sustain their cultures and make homes in the Painted Desert’s beautiful and challenging landscape. The colorful clays, sandstones, petrified wood, and basalt that give the region much of its striking character also served as important building materials, and people ground and flaked them by hand to fashion tools, household implements, and ornaments. Former inhabitants left illustrations of animals important to them at rock art sites throughout the park, and hides, feathers, fur, sinew, and bone were used to make clothing and many objects, including sewing needles, hair pins, beads, and whistles. Prehistoric farmers began cultivating maize here at least 4,500 years ago, but the roots, nuts, fruits, and seeds of wild plants always remained important resources, providing food, medicine, wood, and raw materials for weaving fabric and basketry, making soap, and creating vivid paints and dyes.