The first known inhabitants of New Mexico were members of the Clovis culture of Paleo-Indians.[20]:19 Later inhabitants include American Indians of the Mogollon and Ancestral Pueblo peoples cultures.[21]:52 By the time of European contact in the 16th century, the region was settled by the villages of the Pueblo peoples and groups of Navajo, Apache, and Ute.[20]:6,48
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado assembled an enormous expedition at Compostela in 1540–1542 to explore and find the mystical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola as described by Fray Marcos de Niza.[21]:19–24 The name Nuevo México was first used by a seeker of gold mines named Francisco de Ibarra, who explored far to the north of Mexico in 1563 and reported his findings as being in "a New Mexico".[22] Juan de Oñate officially established the name when he was appointed the first governor of the new Province of New Mexico in 1598.[21]:36–37 The same year, he founded the San Juan de los Caballeros colony, the first permanent European settlement in the future state of New Mexico,[23] on the Rio Grande near Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.[21]:37 Oñate extended El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, Royal Road of the Interior, by 700 miles (1,100 km) from Santa Bárbara, Chihuahua, to his remote colony.[24]:49