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The origins of the Andaman Islanders: Local myth and archaeological evidence
Abstract
A place named Wot-a-emi has been associated by the Andaman Islanders with the origins of their ancestors. How does this myth square with archaeological findings?
... According to Niclas Burenhult (1996), "the Andamanese languages show no apparent genetic affinity to other languages of Southeast Asia or, indeed, the rest of the world, and there is no evidence of outside influence in the form of borrowing or precolonial linguistic colonization. In sum, it seems reasonably safe to assume that Andamanese is the sole remaining linguistic representative of pre-Neolithic Southeast Asia." (Cooper 1993). The languages, distinctive cultures and phenotypes of the Andamanese affirm their long separation from the other mainland populations. ...
Translating from any moribund language is cumbersome, as it is. More so it is when translating songs from a language already extinct. This paper presents, in part, a rare documentation involving on-hand translations of songs sung by the last speaker of Bo, which became extinct in 2010 with the death of Boa Sr. in the Andaman Islands off the eastern coast of India. Author adapted "active eliciting" (Austin & Sallabank 2011: 345) while translating the songs into Hindi with the help of the singer-in this case, the only one who knew the language, Boa Sr.-the last speaker of Bo. This would not be possible without a lucky coincidence of her being partially bilingual with Hindi. Repetitive and omission methods were employed to ascertain the veracity of translations, before they were also translated into English by the author.
... These two haplotypes are not found among the Indian populations. 2. Evidence from archaeological studies of Andamanese kitchen middens, indicates that Andamanese used a Toalian stone technology found all over the Indonesian archipelago, which indicates that Negritos were more widespread than has been thought (Cooper 1993). 3. It has also been established culturally that the Great Andamanese differ from Jarawa and Onge in their design and construction of huts, weapons, boats and canoes, ornaments and customs. ...
The Great Andamanese is a generic term used to refer to ten different tribes who spoke closely related varieties of the same language in the entire set of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Their language is known by the same name, i.e. Great Andamanese. It constitutes the sixth language family of India, the other five being Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and Tai-Kadai, all of them spoken in mainland India.
... The Andaman Islands, however, stand out as a potentially extraordinary prospect within global island colonization patterning. The earliest known archaeological data derive only from the Late Holocene, prompting Cooper (1993Cooper ( , 1996 to posit a late arrival. Yet the circumstantial evidence for an earlier colonization is increasingly persuasive. ...
Analysis of the spatial and temporal structure of global island colonization allows us to frame the extent of insular human cultural diversity, model the impact of common environmental factors cross-culturally, and understand the contribution of island maritime societies to big historical processes. No such analysis has, however, been undertaken since the 1980s. In this paper we review and update global patterns in island colonization, synthesizing data from all the major island groups and theaters and undertaking quantitative and qualitative analysis of these data. We demonstrate the continued relevance of certain biogeographic and environmental factors in structuring how humans colonized islands during the Holocene. Our analysis also suggests the importance of other factors, some previously anticipated—such as culturally ingrained seafaring traditions and technological enhancement of dispersal capacity—but some not, such as the relationship between demographic growth and connectivity, differing trophic limitations impinging on colonizing farmers versus hunter-gatherer-foragers, and the constraining effects of latitude. We also connect colonization with continental dynamics: both the horizontal transmission of farming lifestyles earlier in the Holocene, and subsequent centrifugal processes associated with early state formation later in the Holocene.
... These two haplotypes are not found among the Indian populations. 2. Evidence from archaeological studies of Andamanese kitchen middens, indicates that Andamanese used a Toalian stone technology found all over the Indonesian archipelago, which indicates that Negritos were more widespread than has been thought (Cooper 1993). 3. It has also been established culturally that the Great Andamanese differ from Jarawa and Onge in their design and construction of huts, weapons, boats and canoes, ornaments and customs. ...
Historical Linguistics and Linguistic Typology have been used to demonstrate that PGA is an independent language family of India. Data from extra-linguistic sources such as anthropology, archaeology and genetics have been used as additional supportive evidence. This chapter will give a summary of the findings and will familiarise the audience with some distinct characteristics of the highly endangered language of the hunter-gatherer society of the Great Andamanese population.
... Several scientific investigations in the Andaman region used 14 C ages focusing on diverse subjects like past monsoonal variability (Rashid et al. 2007;Achyutan et al. 2014;Ali et al. 2015;Ota et al. 2017;Kumar et al. 2018;Bhushan et al. 2019b), past salinity changes (Sijinkumar et al. 2016), deformational history of Andaman Islands (Rajendran et al. 2008;Kunz et al. 2010;Awasthi et al. 2013), past volcanic activity (Awasthi et al. 2010), past sea-level changes (Scheffers et al. 2012), past tsunami deposits (Jankaew et al. 2008) and archeological history (Cooper 1993) of the region. However, there are limited reservoir age estimates available from the region (Dutta et al. 2001;Southon et al. 2002). ...
Marine reservoir age is an important component for correction in radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) dating of marine and coastal samples. ¹⁴ C concentration in pre-bomb marine samples of known age are used to derive marine reservoir age of a region. Annually banded coral from Landfall island in the northern Andaman has been analyzed for its ¹⁴ C concentration during the pre-bomb period 1948–1951. ¹⁴ C age and reservoir effect (∆R) are reported for these pre-bomb coral samples from the northern Andaman region. The mean ¹⁴ C age of 331 ± 61 yr BP was obtained for the period 1948–1951 with an average reservoir age correction of –138 ± 61 yr. This reservoir age correction is lowest reported from the northern Indian Ocean. ∆R value of the northern Andaman and the Bay of Bengal appears lower than that of southern Andaman. The ∆R values obtained using mollusk shells and coral from the Andaman region shows large variability. The lower reservoir age correction for the Landfall Island situated in the northern part of the Andaman archipelago, could result due to freshwater flux and reduced upwelling in the region.
... However, archaeological evidence for the early occupation of the Andaman and other Southeast Asian Islands is lacking, due to the poor conditions for organic preservation in tropical rain forests. Although several authors have argued for the great antiquity of occupation in the Andaman Islands (Radcliffe-Brown 1964;Cipriani 1962;Dutta 1963), the oldest radiocarbon date from an archaeological context is 2,280 ± 90 years ago (Cooper 1993). This does not necessarily refute the possibility of earlier settlement, but it provides no empirical support of it. ...
The "negrito hypothesis" suggests that populations of smallbodied foragers in South and Southeast Asia who share common phenotypic characteristics may also share a common, ancient origin. The key defining characteristics of the "negrito" phenotype, small body size, dark skin, and tightly curled hair, have been interpreted as linking these populations to sub-Saharan Africans. The underlying assumption of this interpretation is that the observed phenotypic similarities likely reflect shared ancestry rather than phenotypic convergence. Current genetic evidence is inconclusive, as it both demonstrates that negrito populations have genetic affinities with neighboring populations but also rare and ancient variation that suggests considerable isolation. This study investigates the skeletal phenotype of Andaman Islanders and Aeta foragers from the Philippines in the context of the phenotypic variation among other hunter-gatherers globally, to test whether they show a common, unique physique apart from small body size. Particular emphasis is placed on the comparison of negrito phenotypes to African, Asian, and Australian hunter-gatherer diversity to investigate phenotypic similarities to other populations globally. The results demonstrate that despite sharing small adult stature, the Andaman Islanders and Aeta show variation in body dimensions. In particular, the Andaman Islanders share a pattern of narrow bi-iliac breadth and short upper limbs with the Khoisan (Later Stone Age Southern Africans), whereas the Aeta and Efé show broader bi-iliac breadths relative to lower limb lengths. Although general similarities in size and proportions remain between the Andamanese and Aeta, differences in humero-femoral indices and arm length between these groups and the Efé demonstrate that there is not a generic "pygmy" phenotype. Our interpretations of negrito origins and adaptation must account for this phenotypic variation.
... However, archaeological evidence for the early occupation of the Andaman and other Southeast Asian Islands is lacking, due to the poor conditions for organic preservation in tropical rain forests. Although several authors have argued for the great antiquity of occupation in the Andaman Islands (Radcliffe-Brown 1964; Cipriani 1962; Dutta 1963), the oldest radiocarbon date from an archaeological context is 2,280 ± 90 years ago (Cooper 1993). This does not necessarily refute the possibility of earlier settlement, but it provides no empirical support of it. ...
The “negrito hypothesis” suggests that populations of small-bodied foragers in South and Southeast Asia who share common phenotypic characteristics may also share a common, ancient origin. The key defining characteristics of the “negrito” phenotype, small body size, dark skin, and tightly curled hair, have been interpreted as linking these populations to sub-Saharan Africans. The underlying assumption of this interpretation is that the observed phenotypic similarities likely reflect shared ancestry rather than phenotypic convergence. Current genetic evidence is inconclusive, as it both demonstrates that negrito populations have genetic affinities with neighboring populations but also rare and ancient variation that suggests considerable isolation. This study investigates the skeletal phenotype of Andaman Islanders and Aeta foragers from the Philippines in the context of the phenotypic variation among other hunter-gatherers globally, to test whether they show a common, unique physique apart from small body size. Particular emphasis is placed on the comparison of negrito phenotypes to African, Asian, and Australian hunter-gatherer diversity to investigate phenotypic similarities to other populations globally. The results demonstrate that despite sharing small adult stature, the Andaman Islanders and Aeta show variation in body dimensions. In particular, the Andaman Islanders share a pattern of narrow bi-iliac breadth and short upper limbs with the Khoisan (Later Stone Age Southern Africans), whereas the Aeta and Efé show broader bi-iliac breadths relative to lower limb lengths. Although general similarities in size and proportions remain between the Andamanese and Aeta, differences in humero-femoral indices and arm length between these groups and the Efé demonstrate that there is not a generic “pygmy” phenotype. Our interpretations of negrito origins and adaptation must account for this phenotypic variation.
... Many coastlines around the world have evidence of coastal sites and shell mounds that offer rich and well preserved material for the reconstruction of social and economic life, and potential for the elaboration of mythical and.symbolic histories constructed out of the contrasting worlds of land and sea. In the seas around India, the shell mounds of the Andaman Islands have long been famous (Cooper 1993;Dutta 1989), although comparable prehistoric shell middens have not been reported from the mainland. The key, however, to filling out this picture must lie in two research strategies. ...
Conventional accounts of world prehistory are dominated by land-based narratives
progressing from scavenging and hunting of land mammals and gathering of plants
to animal domestication and crop agriculture, and ultimately to urban civilisations
supported by agricultural surpluses and trade. The use of coastlines and marine
resources has been viewed as marginal, late in the sequence, or anomalous. This bias
is primarily the result of three factors: the removal of most relevant evidence by sealevel
change; the bad press given to coastal hunters and gatherers by 19th century
ethnographers; and a belief in technological 'primitivism'. In this paper I will
examine the case for treating coastal habitats as amongst the most attractive for
human settlement, and coastlines and seaways not as barriers but as gateways to
human movement and contact, from early hominid dispersals to the rise of the great
coastal and riverine civilisations.
... They resemble the Burmese in physical appearance and speak languages of the Autroasiatic family of mainland Southeast Asia [9]. Archaeological data for the Andaman Islands are relatively scarce, and the oldest radiocarbon dates are only about 2000 years before present [35]. However, the distinctive culture, appearance, and languages of the Andamanese argues for a longer separation from the surrounding mainland Asian populations. ...
The Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal are inhabited by hunter-gatherers of unknown origin, now on the verge of extinction. The Andamanese and other Asian small-statured peoples, traditionally known as "Negritos," resemble African pygmies. However, it is generally believed that they descend from the early Australo-Melanesian settlers of Southeast Asia and that their resemblance to some Africans is due to adaptation to a similar environment, rather than shared origins.
We analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences and RFLP polymorphisms, and Y chromosome biallelic markers and microsatellites, in present-day Andamanese of the Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese tribes, and of inhabitants of the neighboring Nicobar Islands. We also analyzed mtDNA sequences from Andamanese hair samples collected by an ethnographer during 1906-1908. Living Andamanese exhibit low genetic variability that is consistent with their small population size and reproductive isolation.
Our data indicate that the Andamanese have closer affinities to Asian than to African populations and suggest that they are the descendants of the early Palaeolithic colonizers of Southeast Asia. In contrast, the Nicobarese have genetic affinities to groups widely distributed throughout Asia today, presumably descended from Neolithic agriculturalists.
The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal has been the home of three sects of people and cultures, namely, the natives, hybrids of convicts, and recent immigrants. The initial inhabitation of the islands is known through the study of shell middens and subsequent peopling by early ethnographic accounts and contemporary issue-based studies. The artifact-centric cultural inferences from such excavation reports, ethnographic accounts, material evidence, and living traditions are of immense value in understanding the cultural history of the archipelago. The cultural inferences derived from such studies under five categories—(a) settlements of the coast and the inland, (b) midden artifacts and native practices, (c) osseous trophies and wooden sculptures, (d) pottery and division of labor, and (e) seasons and preservation practices—are of ethnoarchaeological significance, despite the theoretical debate to consider the erstwhile ethnographic studies and museum collections as evidence for ethnoarchaeological interpretation.
This article briefly reviews historical archaeologies of South Asia. In 1996 Charles Orser argued that historical archaeology needs to consider its own definition more broadly and internationalize its scope (Orser 1996). Such an approach would define the contours of the modern world more concretely. This program of research has been widely adopted, yet it has been hampered, to a certain extent, by its hemispheric focus on the Atlantic World. South Asia, as a key constituent of the Indian Ocean, troubles this approach to historical archaeology and demands consideration of other circulations, epicenters, and agendas in the development of the modern world. This article considers that trade, landscapes, and material culture all point to a modern world in which the Atlantic World is not the only epicenter.
Die zu Indien gehörigen Inseln der Andamanen und Nikobaren in der Bucht von Bengalen, die in den letzten Jahren ab und an als Ausbund an Exotik in der Presse waren, sind die Heimat mehrerer indigener Gruppen. Dazu zählen die Onge, die Jarawa und die Sentinelen1 Während der letzten Jahrzehnte hat die Mitgliederzahl dieser verschiedenen Gruppen rasch abgenommen, ihre Lebensweisen haben sich verändert, und einige von ihnen stehen buchstäblich vor der Ausrottung (Mukerjee 1995).
The relationship between island biogeography and the vulnerability of island biota to extinction as a result of human activities was examined. In particular, this study analyzed whether island area, maximum elevation of an island, isolation from the nearest continental landmass, or date of human colonization had statistically significant relationships with the proportion of endemic island bird species that have become endangered or extinct. The study examined islands or island groups with endemic bird species, and which have never been connected to a continental landmass. Both modern and fossil bird species were incorporated into the analysis. Islands that were colonized by humans earliest had the lowest proportion of modern species alone, and modern and fossil species combined, that have gone extinct. However, date of human arrival was not correlated with the proportion of modern species that are endangered. Maximum elevation of an island was negatively correlated with the proportion of modern species that are extinct, and was positively correlated with the proportion of modern species that are endangered. Area was negatively correlated with the proportion of modern species that are endangered. Isolation of islands was not significantly correlated with the proportion of modern species extinct or endangered, but was positively correlated with the proportion of modern and fossil species combined that have gone extinct. These results indicate that the initial spasm of island bird extinctions due to human contact may have, in part, passed. They also indicate that bird species on islands colonized earliest by humans may have had more time to adapt to the presence of man and his commensal species, resulting in reduced extinction rates.
India represents five language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Andamanese. The origin of Andamanese tribes and its relationship with Southeast population have been the subject of speculation for centuries. Latest research by geneticists [Thangaraj, K. et al. Reconstructing the origin of Andaman Islanders. Science 308, 996] of complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from two out of three accessible tribes, i.e. Onges and Great Andamanese populations, revealed two deeply branching clades that share their most recent common ancestor in founder haplogroup M, with lineages spread among India, Africa, East Asia, New Guinea, and Australia.
Mitochondrial sequences were retrieved from museum specimens of the enigmatic Andaman Islanders to analyze their evolutionary history. D-loop and protein-coding data reveal that phenotypic similarities with African pygmoid groups are convergent. Genetic and epigenetic data are interpreted as favoring the long-term isolation of the Andamanese, extensive population substructure, and/or two temporally distinct settlements. An early colonization featured populations bearing mtDNA lineage M2, and this lineage is hypothesized to represent the phylogenetic signal of an early southern movement of humans through Asia. The results demonstrate that Victorian anthropological collections can be used to study extinct, or seriously admixed populations, to provide new data about early human origins.
The religion of the Andaman Islanders
- Radcliffe-brown
The problem of the origins of the Andamanese
- Cooper
Survey of Little Andaman during 1954
- Cipriani
The wild pigs in the Andamans
- Abdulali
Archaeological evidence for resource exploitation in the Andaman Islands
- Cooper