Unlike other Native American peoples, the Surui, Karitiana, and Xavante have an ancestry partially related to indigenous populations of the Andaman Islands, New Guinea, and Australia.

Scientists speculate that the relationship derives from an earlier people, called "Population Y", in East Asia from whence both groups diverged 15,000 to 30,000 years ago, the future Australasians migrating south and the remote ancestors of the Surui northward, finding their way to the New World and to the interior Amazon Basin.

[5] The Surui have recently made headlines as one of the first indigenous people of South America to use high-tech tools (in particular Google Earth) to police their territory.

Satellite pictures show that this is highly effective as the Suruí territory is the only intact remaining piece of rainforest in the area.

[10] The project is designed to sequester at least five million tons of carbon dioxide over 30 years while protecting critical rainforest habitat.