[7][8] The Andamanese peoples are among the various groups considered Negrito, owing to their dark skin and diminutive stature.

[9] It is suggested that the Andamanese settled in the Andaman Islands around the latest glacial maximum, around 26,000 years ago.

In the next century, they experienced a massive population decline due to epidemics of outside diseases and loss of territory.

Until the late 18th century, the Andamanese culture, language, and genetics were preserved from outside influences by their fierce reaction to visitors, which included killing any shipwrecked foreigners, and by the remoteness of the islands.

They live on flesh and rice and milk, and have fruits different from any of ours.The oldest archaeological evidence for the habitation of the islands dates to the 1st millennium BC.

Genetic evidence suggests that the indigenous Andamanese peoples share a common origin, and that the islands were settled sometime after 26,000 years ago, possibly at the end of the Last Glacial Period, when sea levels were much lower reducing the distance between the Andaman Islands and the Asian mainland,[15] with genetic estimates suggesting that the two main linguistic groups (Great Andamanese and Onge/Jarawa) diverged around 16,000 years ago.

[17][18] The Andamanese were considered to be a pristine example of a hypothesized Negrito population, which showed similar physical characteristics, and was supposed to have existed throughout southeast Asia.

[19][20] Recent genetic studies conclusively demonstrate Negrito groups do not share a common origin to the exclusion of other Asians.

Lacking immunity against common infectious diseases of the Eurasian mainland, the large Jarawa habitats on the southeastern regions of South Andaman Island experienced a massive population decline due to disease within four years of the establishment of a colonial presence on the island in 1789.

[25] During mid-19th century, the British government in India established penal colonies on the islands and an increasing number of Indian and Karen arrived, both as settlers and prisoners.

[26][27][28] In 1923, the British ornithologist and anthropologist Frank Finn, who visited the islands in the 1890s while working for the Indian Museum, described the Andamanese as "The World's Most Primitive People", writing:[29] I used to envy the pigmies their simple costume, which in the case of the ladies was a wisp and a waistband, and in that of the men, nothing at all.

Their interests are looked after by an English Civil Servant, who has to see that no one sells them drink, or interferes with them in any way; but even this officer-in-charge, as he is styled, dares not go among them where he is not known, and considerable tact is required in getting an introduction to the local chief.In the 1940s, the Jarawa were attacked by imperial Japanese forces for their hostility.

[30] In 1974, a film crew and anthropologist Triloknath Pandit attempted friendly contact by leaving a tethered pig, some pots and pans, some fruit, and toys on the beach at North Sentinel Island.

[31][32][33] On 2 August 1981, the Hong Kong freighter ship Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef.

A few days later, crewmen on the immobile vessel observed that small black men were carrying spears and arrows and building boats on the beach.

The following year, Jarawa individuals and small groups began appearing along roadsides and occasionally venturing into settlements to steal food.

[35][36][37] On 17 November 2018, a United States missionary, John Allen Chau, was killed when he tried to introduce Christianity to the Sentinelese tribe.

[30] Only the Sentinelese are still living in their original homeland on North Sentinel Island, largely undisturbed, and have fiercely resisted all attempts at contact.

[53][54] The members of the tribes found various ways to use leaves in their everyday lives including clothing, medicine, and to sleep on.

[57] One version found by Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown held that the first man died and went to heaven, a pleasurable world, but this blissful period ended due to breaking a food taboo, specifically eating the forbidden vegetables in the Puluga's garden.

[58] Thus Catastrophe ensued, and eventually the people grew overpopulated and didn't follow Puluga's laws, and hence there was a Great Flood that left four survivors, who lost their fire.

Those of the Andaman islands have dark skin, are short in stature, and have "frizzy" hair, while displaying "Asiatic facial features".

[65] Genetic studies have revealed that the Andamanese people display affinity to the indigenous South Asian hunter-gatherers, often termed "Ancient Ancestral South Indians" (AASI), as well as to Australasian populations (AA), such as Melanesians, and contemporary East/Southeast Asian peoples (ESEA).

While the Andamanese are occasionally used as an imperfect proxy for the AASI component, they are genetically closer to the 'Basal East Asian' Tianyuan man.

[66][67] Phylogenetic data suggests that an early initial eastern lineage trifurcated, and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the AASI, Andamanese, as well as East/Southeast Asians,[68] although Papuans may have also received some geneflow from an earlier group (xOoA), around 2%,[69] next to additional archaic admixture in the Sahul region.

[70][71] Concerning the use of Andamanese as proxy for AASI ancestry, Yelmen et al. (2019) deduced that the non West Eurasian component, termed S-component, extracted from South Asian samples would serve as a much better proxy for AASI ancestry, especially those extracted from Irula samples, than the Andamanese.

[72][73][74][15] When compared with ancient DNA samples, Andamanese peoples are closest to the pre-Neolithic Hoabinhians in Mainland Southeast Asia (covered by two samples from Malaysia and Laos), and display high genetic affinity to the Tianyuan man in Northern China, with both being basal to contemporary East Asians, forming a "deep Asian" ancestral lineage.

Rather, haplogroup D was part of the standing variation carried by the OOA expansion, and later lost from most of the populations except in Andaman and partially in Japan and Tibet”.

[84] In a 2019 study by Haber et al. showed that Haplogroup D-M174 originated in Central Asia and evolved as it migrated to different directions of the continent.