A big shift!
rock structures
Ancestral Puebloan ruins at Hovenweep, Utah.
People have lived in Utah for thousands of years. For 5/6 of that time, they have lived a hunting and gathering life.
However, around 2,500 years ago, the hunting and gathering life of the earliest people began to slowly change--and in big ways.
People began to grow food. The people we now call Ancestral Pueblo or Anasazi began to farm in the dry, warm climate of the Four Corners area. They figured out how to irrigate their crops.
Corn, beans, and squash (which probably came into Utah from Mexico) became a mainstay of meals. So did turkey, which the people had domesticated.
Settling down to farm was a big change, and it had a lot of consequences.