Yuman

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The Yuman people are a group of Native American ethnic groups of the Yuman language family. The historic Yuman-speaking peoples in this region were skilled warriors and active traders, maintaining exchange networks with the Pima in southern Arizona and with the Pacific coast.

The term Patayan is used by archaeologists to describe the prehistoric Native American cultures that inhabited parts of modern day Arizona, California and Baja California, including areas near the Colorado River Valley, the nearby uplands, and north to the vicinity of the Grand Canyon. These prehistoric people may have been ancestoral to the Yuman. They practiced floodplain agriculture where possible, but relied heavily on hunting and gathering.