The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine.

The name comes from the Spanish pino piñonero, a name used for both the American varieties and the stone pine common in Spain, which also produces edible nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine.

Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric American Indians are still used today to collect the pinyon seeds for personal use or for commercialization.

[2] Pinyon pine trees are also known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients.

[8] The pinyon has likely been a source of food since the arrival of Homo sapiens in the Great Basin and American Southwest (Oasisamerica).

In the Great Basin, archaeological evidence indicates that the range of the pinyon pine expanded northward after the Ice Age, reaching its northernmost (and present) limit in southern Idaho about 4000 BCE.

[9] Early Native Americans undoubtedly collected the edible seeds, but, at least in some areas, evidence of large quantities of pinyon nut harvesting does not appear until about 600 CE.

Muir said the Indians closely watched the pinyon trees year-round and could predict the scarcity or abundance of the crop months before harvest time.

The harvesting method was similar to that observed by Muir in Nevada, except that the pinyon seeds were extracted immediately after the cones had been scorched in the brushwood fire.