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What evidence suggests that Numic peoples spread through the Great Basin from southeastern California?

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Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin Kaylei Weed (left) of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe with her two sons and mother, Elaine Ethel Weed, at the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2015.

Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that Numic-speaking peoples expanded across the Great Basin from southeastern California over the last 2,000 years. This migration pattern is supported by the distribution and relationships of the Numic languages, which are part of the Uto-Aztecan language family.12

Researchers have utilized this combined evidence to trace the movement of these groups, noting that they reached their northernmost territories less than 1,000 years ago. This expansion stands in contrast to the Washoe, whose ancestors are believed to have separated from other California Hokan-speaking groups several millennia ago, long before the Numic spread.1