A time-lapse photo reveals a smattering of stars dotting the sky above Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

The landscape that today attracts more than four million tourists was once home to many indigenous peoples, including the Hisatsinom, or Anasazi. They and others survived by growing cotton, corn, beans, and squash along the sandy banks and terraces of the Colorado River some 1,300 years ago.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Unexpected Canyon," January 2006, National Geographic magazine)