It is believed that the Ute have been in the same area for ten thousand years, which establishes them as far back as the Archaic-Desert culture, and were first "discovered" in the Four Corners region in the 1500's. The Ute Mountain Utes and their cousins, the Southern Utes in Ignacio, are the only tribes remaining in Colorado today.

The Utes speak a Shoshonean language, which is part of the Uto-Aztecean language family, but became distinct from it in about the year Zero. The Hopi are strongly tied to the Utes by this language.