This area has long been populated by a variety of indigenous peoples who often moved around in small nomadic groups because the land did not support large populations at any one location. The Panamint Valley is home to the Timbisha Shoshone peoples, which include the Coso, Panamint, and Death Valley Shoshone who historically would migrate across Death Valley National Park, the Panamint Valley and nearby Bureau of Land Management lands.

As is the case with much of Indigenous American history, the Timbisha face difficulty and conflict with the National Park Service in regaining access to their ancestral lands. After much tribal effort and negotiation over their territories, the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act of 2000 saw the return of 7,500 acres (30 km2) of land to the Timbisha Shoshone tribe. 

The Timbisha call themselves Nümü Tümpisattsi (″Death Valley People″; literally: ″People from the Place of red ochre (face) paint)″) after the locative term for the Death Valley which was named after an important red ochre source for paint that can be made from a type of clay found in the in Golden Valley a little south of Furnace Creek, California.