They do not allow anyone to step foot on the island. Additionally, the law protects anyone attempting to visit the island, as the inhabitants defend themselves to the death. Eliminating contact with the Sentinelese also prevents the spread of fatal diseases to a population that has no immunity. By disallowing off-shore fishing, the food source of the islanders is protected. The government of India has declared North Sentinel Island, including three miles extending outward, an exclusion zone. They’re capable of fishing in the nearby waters as far as they can paddle their rafts/canoes with their poles. They defend themselves with weapons such as handmade bows and arrows and spears. If they are like the other Andamanese, they eat monitor lizards, berries, pigs, and seafood that they catch in the surrounding reefs. A Little Known CultureĪs we would expect from an isolated ancient culture, the Sentinelese live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Because they do not possess the genetic admixing that is seen when different populations of people come together, the group and their culture have presumably remained unchanged. Some DNA research suggests that they may have migrated from mainland India. Scholars still debate when the Andamanese and Sentinelese arrived and also from where. Also, Asians and Pacific populations (including the Andamanese) appear to have migrated in one wave and expansion, contrary to the earlier theory of multiple waves out of Africa. Their results show that the Andamanese (including the Sentinelese) people have an archaic human ancestor that has since gone extinct. A Possible Unknown HomininĪn interesting study was conducted recently by Mondal et al, and the results were published on June 25, 2016, in Nature Genetics. Singh was not able to conclusively determine whether or not they arrived at the same time as the rest of the Andamanese or if they were even the same group, but he did say, “The Sentinelese are the only pre-Neolithic tribe left in the world where no contact has been made” ( Harding 2001). Without DNA from the North Sentinelese, Dr. This may be due to the initial penetration of the northern coastal areas of the Indian Ocean by modern humans in the migration out of Africa about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago” ( Menon 2012). “The Centre’s study has suggested that two ancient maternal lineages have evolved in the Andaman Islands in genetic isolation independently. Migrations took place to the islands at some point when water levels were lower, but when the waters rose again, the islanders became isolated. He hypothesized that during the Ice Age, a land bridge connected Myanmar to the Andaman Islands. Genetic research in the early 2000s by Lalji Singh, director of India’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, showed that the Jarawa and Onge had genetic differences from each other that indicate either different migrations out of Africa or different origins altogether. ![]() What Does Genetic Work Tell Us? Different Evolutionary Lineages Because DNA results differ and there are conflicting theories about their migration, the true origin and relationship of the Andamanese people are murky.
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