The first occupants of Wyoming were prehistoric hunters and gatherers who probably arrived from Siberia through Alaska more than 20,000 years ago. The total number of these peoples was never large, because they were highly dependent upon local game populations. By the time the first well-documented visits by “white” explorers to Wyoming occurred, the state’s population likely did not exceed 10,000. The Shoshone were the largest group in Wyoming at the beginning of the 19th century, but there were also smaller numbers of Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, Atsina, Arikara, Nez Percé, Ute, and Oglala and Brulé Dakota (Sioux). The first known ...(100 of 4665 words)