X chromosome (female)
Y chromosome (male)
6. The Andamanese
Genetics and possible Relations
by George Weber
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Table of Contents
Genetic base for human variability (including race) The Andamanese and their possible relations (with Toba volcano insert) Kashyap et al: Molecular Relatedness of the Aboriginal Groups of the Andaman and Nicobar islands Thangaraj et al: Genetic Affinities of the Andaman Islanders, a vanishing Human Population Endicott at al: The Genetic Origins of the Andamanese |
At the end of Chapter 4 we have met an Andamanese boy, Joseph, whose wanderings all over India were noted by vigilant British security officials in the 1870s. They had no trouble tracking him: Joseph could never have merged into the crowds anywhere, not even in multi-racial and multi-cultural India. His appearance attracted attention wherever he went because he was Andamanese - he was a member of the Negrito group. In Chapter 5 we have also listed some of the more obvious characteristics of this group.
Genetic base for human variability (including race)
(ref. Hinds D.A., et al. 2005. "Whole-genome patterns of common DNA variation in three human populations." Science, 307:1072-1079, 18 February 2005
The abstract of this most interesting article has the following to say:
Individual differences in DNA sequence are the genetic basis of human variability. We have characterized whole-genome patterns of common human DNA variation by genotyping 1,586,383 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 71 Americans of European, African, and Asian ancestry. Our results indicate that these SNPs capture most common genetic variation as a result of linkage disequilibrium, the correlation among common SNP alleles. We observe a strong correlation between extended regions of linkage disequilibrium and functional genomic elements. Our data provide a tool for exploring many questions that remain regarding the causal role of common human DNA variation in complex human traits and for investigating the nature of genetic variation within and between human populations.
Two samples of the 24 charts given for each chromosome in the
article are shown below: the X (XX = female) and Y ( XY = male)
chromosomes. For the chromosomes 1-22 and a chart of the haplotype
blocks please refer to the original article.
red: European American
green: African American
blue: Han Chinese
Top track: genotyped SNPs, per kb
Middle track: fraction of common SNPs in high LD with another SNP
Bottom track: fraction of interval covered by LD bins >50 kb
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X chromosome (female)
|
Y chromosome (male)
|
A haplogroup is a large group of haplotypes - which are a series of alleles on a chromosome. Alleles in turn are genes that express certain characteristics such as the colour of hair or the eyes or skin pigmentation, etc. Haplogroups are inherited from both mother and father, i.e. they can be used to track and approximately date the ancient genetic history of a population, its mixing with or separation from other populations, its migrations, etc. In genetic population studies, the haplogroups of the female lineage is generally preferred.
All known haplogroups are present in sub-saharan Africa and that many occur ONLY there . The haplogroups of populations living outside Africa are merely a subset of those existing in Africa. This is strong evidence for a human origin in Africa.
Haplogroups can be used to define genetic populations.
The most wide-spread and common haplogroups among major
populations based on the descdent through the female line
(the mtDNA) are Sub-Saharan Africans: Europeans: East Asians: Native Americans:
all types
H, T, U, V, X, K, I, J, W (in macrogroup N)
A, B, F (in Macrogroup N)
C, D, E, G (in macrogroup M)
A, B, rarely X (macrogroup N),
C, D (macrogroup M)
Thr male line of descent is less often used to establish
human descent and the relationship of modern human groups
because the male haplogroups are limited to the Y
chromosome, are much rarer and so much more difficult to
extract that the female mitochondrial DNA.
Haplogroups in India The Andamanese (included in this statistic under
"Tribals") are mostly haplogroup M
For more information on palaeo-genetics and haplogroups
go to for more information on genetic anthropology: click
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~allpoms/genetics4.html
The Andamaneseand their relations
Although the Andamanese Negrito are the world's most ancient isolated population (second perhaps only to the Khoisan of South Africa), there are a number of populations (all few in numbers and some recently extinct, and all widely scattered) that might be more or less closely related to the Andamanese. With the rapid technological advances in analysing and comparing the genoms of entire living human (and even of extinct) populations made recently, such "remnant populations" have become of tremendous importance in tracing and dating the earliest migration of anatomically modern Homo sapiens out of Africa. The Andamanese Negrito, because of their exceptionally long isolation, are among the most important subjects of this new science.
The Negritos and their suspected relatives are found all over the world:
Red: 1 the Andamanese, 2 the Semang of the Malay peninsula - see Chapter 35 and Chapter 36) , 3 the Aeta of the Philippines; 4 it is likely that some of a number of barely-known groups in Indonesia also are Negrito or Negritoid (i.e. Negrito-like)
Blue: 1 the Vedda of Sri Lanka, 2 Veddoid (i.e. Vedda-like) and Negritoid (i.e. Negrito-like) groups in central and southern India, perhaps even including 3 the major Dravidian group
Orange: 1 the Barrineans, 2 the Tasmanians in Australia - see Chapter 51; perhaps other Australian groups
Grey: possible Negritoid populations in 1 Papua-NewGuinea and 2 the Solomon islands; perhaps other groups elsewhere in Oceania
Black: possible African groups such as the 1 Khoisan of South Africa, perhaps also 2 the Congo pygmies, perhaps also 3 remnant groups on the Arabian peninsula - see Chapter 47
Green: possible American relatives such as the 1 Pericu of the Californian peninsula in Mexico, 2 the Lagoa Santa people of Minas Gerais. Brazil ("Luzia"), 3 the Fuegians of southernmost South America - see Chapter 54
Also consult Chapter 24 "Archaeology" and Chapter 25 "Prehistory".
We also have a number of reprints of relevant articles: Cipriani on the "Origins of the Andamanese", Kashyap et al on the "Molecular relatedness of the Andamanese" and Thangaraj et al on "Genetic affiliations of the Andaman and Nicobar Islanders".
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The geographically closest of possible relatives of the Andamanese Negrito. |
The numbers in the map above refer to the following possibly Vedda- and Negrito-related groups. The list is by no means complete. It may contain groups that, if more were known about their genetic and other affinities, would be revealed not to belong here. Expecially in Indonesia there are many smaller and not-so-small islands with populations in their mountainous interiors that remain practically unknown.
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INDIAN SUBCONTINENT 01 Vedda |
CONTINENTAL SOUTHEAST ASIA 12 Moken |
|
INDONESIA 20 Niasan |
PAPUA AND NEW GUINEA 34 Tapiro |
|
THE PHILIPPINES 43 Aeta |
AUSTRALIA 51 Bathurst and Melville islanders |
Before we look more closely at the genetics of the Negrito race to which Joseph belonged, a few words need be said about the delicate subject of race and anthropology. Anthropologists, until around the 60s, collected and published vast amounts of human measurements, anything from weight, height and proportions of limbs, noses, skulls, ears, penes, breasts, buttocks and any other appendages and parts of the human frame. Down to earwax, body smells and nasal mucus, all was tabulated and classified with enormous zeal. Primitives were stripped down mercilessly to be photographed since it was taken for granted that such backward people could not know shame or embarrassment. Nothing was safe from the probing finger and the measuring tape of the physical anthropologist. Unpleasant though this was in many of its aspects, it was a relatively harmless obsession and a least some results retain some practical and scientific value today.
Not at all harmless was the use made of the figures so collected: daring taxonomies of human races were constructed and then used to identify "higher" and "lower" types with the classifying scientist's own noble type invariably coming out on top. The German anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt, to pick an example at random, identified a "primitive chimpanzoid type" among the Andamanese Onge and called the Veddoid Paniyer people of southern India the "phylogenetically lowest type" he knew. On the other hand, the same professor captioned a shapely Andamanese girl as "well-proportioned, i.e. europiforme, shape". Europiforme was also, no doubt, the professor's own shape in his own opinion. It was German anthropology under the Nazi regime that demonstrated most clearly the abyss beneath such pseudo-scientific garbage. Anthropological delusions were not a German speciality but were widely shared by the international scientific community. In India, the British ethnologist Ripley demonstrated "scientifically" in 1901 that upper-castes differed in their fine noses from the squat ones of their menials. Nor was the Swiss professor Schlaginhaufen alone in his conviction that stupidity, immorality and poverty could be traced to racial factors.
This type of anthropological classifying has been thoroughly discredited after 1945, although it took a few more decades before all its tenured representatives had disappeared into retirement. It is widely accepted today that the individual variety of the human frame is such that metric anthropology is of very limited us use for classifying the human species, let alone for making fatuous distinctions between higher and lower forms.
The obvious physical differences between local populations that are popularly called "races" are in fact to a large extent local genetic adaptations to environmental factors, acquired over dozens to hundreds of generations of residence. While the classifying of humans into noble and less noble races has been shown up for the nonsense it is, racial physical characteristics can still be validly described. The pendulum of scientific foolishness has now swung to the other extreme with some guilt-ridden "politically correct" people believing race to be merely a cultural construct. Skin colour, shape of skull and hair forms along with many other genetically determined average characteristics of a given population are not "cultural constructs" but physical reality. Race is not a cultural construct - only the interpretation of some races as "lower" or "higher", "more stupid" or "more intelligent", "better" or "worse" is.
When numerically small groups have lived in isolation for long periods, physical types tend to standardize throughout a population. The Andamanese are one of the few (and possibly the clearest) examples of such a situation.¬ÝWhich brings us to the Negrito race.
The Negrito are numerically and physically among the smallest (for the use of the term "pygmy" see FAQ) as well as among the least-known of all living human races. The name comes from the Spanish "little Negro" and was given by early explorers who thought that the Andamanese were the survivors of a shipwrecked slave ship from Africa. This theory collapsed the moment the first unbiased scientific observers met living Andamanese Negritos face to face. Apart from dark skin and curly hair, they have little in common with any African population, including the African pygmies. There are, however, a few fascinating connections to the Khoisan of South Africa. While we can thus be quite sure that the Negritos are not Africans (except in the way all of us Homo sapiens originated in Africa - see Chapter 34 "What does Related mean?"). Clear archaeological evidence found so far of Negrito settlements in the Andamans does not go back more than 2,200 years but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Besides, there is now little doubt that the Negrito race represents an ancient, if not the most ancient, component in the prehistoric peopling of Asia by anatomically modern humans. As such they could go back 70,000 years.
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Toba volcano on Sumatra erupted in a dramatic "super-eruption" (class VEI8) around 73,000 years ago and covered much of today's insular and large parts of continental Asia with a blanket of ash, besides causing worldwide climatic disruption. The Andaman and Nicobar islands and the Malay peninsula as well as most of mainland India were directly in the path of the eruption's worst destruction. The event is relatively well dated and sets an earliest limit to the the arrival of the first modern human in the area. We note here only in passing that the dates quoted for the calculated genetic M2 and M4 coalescence at 63,000 +/- 6,000 years of the Andamanese (in Endicott et al above) fit this timetable remarkably well. For volcanological and climatological data as well as this eruption's possible effects on human evolution see Toba Volcano. |
As regards the Negritos and their relationships to other populations, there are two opposing schools of thought. The first holds that the Negritos were one group living in a large area of tropical Asia many tens of thousands of years ago when new and more aggressive immigrants arrived who pushed the ancestral Negritos and Veddoids into the remoter jungle areas. In such a scenario the Negrito and Veddoid groups in mainland areas would then gradually have lost contact with each other, leaving us today with only a few widely separated surviving populations. It is this school that has received a massive boost from the latest genetic evidence (see the articles in the yellow boxes earlier in this chapter).
The second school of thought holds that all the Negritoid and Veddoid groups developed independently from each other and are not really related. Their similarities are regarded not as ancestral traits but the result of similar life styles in similar environments (i.e. deep rain forests). The problems with this idea have always been considerable: to explain the many cultural and physical parallels between the "unrelated" groups as mere coincidence was never very convincing. Also, is is more than a little doubtful whether the various and - one assumes - originally quite different groups had enough time for physical adaptations of near-perfect similarity to have occurred. With the latest genetic evidence it is clear that this school of thought will have to rethink its position.
The enormous genetic, cultural and linguistic variety of human life within SEAsia gives a strong hint at the complexity of past population movements in what for want of a better term we will call the ancestral area: the number of living indigenous languages still spoken in the insular part of it alone, in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua-New Guinea and Australia, has been estimated at over 1400 (of which 750 in Papua-New Guinea alone) . This is more than a quarter of all the world's languages. There are another 170 still living languages in Australia. The number of extinct languages in the entire area is likely to be many times greater still.
Among surviving groups that may be related to the Negritos are the Veddas of Sri Lanka and the Veddoids (Vedda-like people) living in tiny groups all over southern India and southeast Asia. Among the islands of Indonesia and Papua-New Guinea there are many groups of people living secretive lives in remote mountainous areas or jungled interiors of islands. About some of them we know little more than that they exist and even that is sometimes in doubt: some have died out during the 20th century while of others nothing has been heard for decades. Common to many of these groups is a short stature, dark skin colour and a technologically primitive hunting-gathering way of life. They are all shy and highly suspicious of outsiders, tending to keep very much to themselves with little direct contact even to their closest neighbours. These characteristics have allowed them to survive until today, but they also make them very difficult for anthropologists to approach and study. Those that are not hostile to outsiders, have been or are in the process of being absorbed into the mainstream population of their region and are likely to disappear in the foreseeable future.
Looking at the overall picture, we can see an outline, however vague and shadowy, of the area that the hypothetical ancestors of the Negritos, Veddoids, Papuans, Australians, Tasmanians and Melanesians and others (including perhaps the prehistoric Japanese Jomon people) once occupied. The area may also have been the launching pad for the earliest immigration into the Americas (see our note on the Brazilian "Luzia" or Lagoa Santa People in Chapter 54). These ancestors may also have been the first group of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) to enter an area previously inhabited by Homo erectus. Their land-taking could have been in the wake of the last Toba volcano eruption around 73,000 years ago that destroyed most (but apparently not all) of the older populations. Homo erectus remains in Java have been dated to a little less than 30,000 years and newly discovered Homo floresiensis seems to have lived until the astonishingly recent date of 12,000 years ago. This means that Homo sapiens and Homo erectus , resp. Homo floresiensis, lived side by side (whether interacting or not), which in turn means that one did not necessarily evolve from the other, at least not in that area.
The fascinating questions around the peopling of Southeast Asia (of which the Andamanese are only one aspect) are manifold, complex and very far from being solved.
There has been such a rush of new methods and research since the late 1990s, above all in genetics but also in other relevant fields, that older results given in this chapter (e.g. the blood group comparisons) have come to look distinctly elderly when set against the shiny new result s of population genetics. They remain relevant since, encouragingly, the older do in most cases support the newer results. Science is on the right track, in other words.
Major research papers are being prepared in numbers all over the world. They involve not only the Andamanese Negrito but other remnant populations, especially in mainland India, and their relations, origins and histories. We are giving you in the following yellow boxes summaries and quotations from articles that have been published. More will be added as and when they become available.
V. K. Kashyap, T. Sitalaximi , B. N. Sarkar, and R. Trivedi
Molecular Relatedness of the Aboriginal Groups of the Andaman and Nicobar islands
This article was published 2003 by the Andaman Association as an Original Publication. Klick here to access the article
Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Lalji Singh, Alla G. Reddy, V. Raghavendra Rao, Subhash C. Sehgal, Peter A. Underhill, Melanie Pierson, Ian G. Frame and Erika Hagelberg
Genetic Affinities of the Andaman Islanders, a vanishing Human Population
The article was published in Current Biology, December 2002. Klick here to access the article
The following abbreviated text is also gives some additional information on Andamanese affiliations:
Phillip Endicott, M. Thomas, P. Gilbert, Ch. Stringer, C. Lalueza-Fox, E. Willerrslev, A.J. Hansen, A. Cooper
The Genetic Origins of the Andaman Islanders
Full text published in American Journal of Human Genetics, no. 72(1), January 2003, report no. 178
Summary: Mitochondrial sequences were retrieved from museum specimens of the enigmatic Andaman islanders to analyse 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 favouring the long-term isolation of the Andamanese, extensive population substructure, and/or two temporally distinct settlements. An early colonization featured populations bearing mtDNA line 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.
Quotes from the article:
... The linguistic division appears to have been matched by phenotypic variation, since E.H. Man described the Jarawa as not bearing the least resemblance to their neighbours (the Aka-Bea), being taller, differently proportioned, and having another type of hair morphology (Barnard-Davis, 1867)
... The epigenetic data suggest that the Andaman islanders originated from either two colonization events or a single founding population that has been subdivided for an extended length of time.
... although powerless to prevent the decline of the Andamanese, Victorian anthropologists were keen to preserve a record of physical variation among humans and obtained collections of skeletal material. These collections now represent a unique scientific resource for genetic research by analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA).
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Median joining network ... showing the known components of the M2 and M4 mtDNA lineages belonging to Asian haplogroup M in mainland India and the Andaman islands ... The diameters of the nodes are an approximate indication of the population totals inferred from sampling to date. The "starlike" radiations of M4, M2a and M2b are consistent with late Pleistocene population expansion events (17,000-32,000 years ago). The linear nature of M2 prior to these demographic signatures suggests a greater antiquity, confirmed by dates modelled on the coalescent process (63,000 +/- 6,000 years ago, compared with 32,000 +/- 7,500 years ago for M4). |
... Neither the Andaman M2 variants is present in current Indian data sets, suggesting that the Andaman sequences represent novel members of M2 and an extension of its known geographical distribution.
Other studies utilizing HVR-1 data, have calculated M2 and M4 to coalesce at 63,000 +/- 6,000 years and 32,000 +/- 7,500 years ago, respectively ... The other known components of Indian M are calculated to be <40,000 years old ... The relatively basal position of the Andaman M2 haplotypes in the median joining network (see above), together with their absence from Indian data sets, suggests ... have developed in situ, after an early colonization. Otherwise these M2 variants should have been preserved in later mainland population expansions, including M2a and M2b, thought to have occurred around 17,000 to 32,000 years ago ... The Andaman M4 haplotype is also basal within its provisional lineage but is still present among populations in India, suggesting it was subject to the late Pleistocene population expansion and, therefore, consistent with its date of coalescence ... This suggests that there may have been at least two distinguishable founding events for the Andaman islands ...
... the probability of two more lineages surviving after 39,500 years when n = 11 is unlikely ... unless there has been population substructure. This is the oldest possible date for a single colonization provided by the CIs for the ages of M2 and M4. Given the substantially older date of coalescence for M2 and the current lack of a source population for the Andaman haplotypes, the data is consistent with at least two founding events. Alternative explanations include a recent immigration bearing the M2 and/or M4 lineages, although this is not consistent with the distinctive languages of the Andaman islanders ...
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Distribution map for mtDNA lineages and haplogroups present in India and the Andaman islands. The non-caste populations are considered individually, whereas the figures for castes are separated north/south along the borders of Goa, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. The upper pie charts depict the percentage of M versus non-M haplotypes, whereas the lower ones indicate the percentage of M2 and M4 expressed as a proportion of all M haplotypes. The figures for ethnic populations from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have been conflated for the purposes of clarity, although they do conceal the fact that neither the Irula or Kota samples contained any M2. Despite this, the average of M2 in the total non-caste population exceeded 20%, compared to approx. 10% for caste populations. New data sets of additional Indian ethnic groups confirm these distributions. This asymmetry is not reflected in the data for M4, which displays a more even distribution. |
... Detailed data on the distribution of mtDNA lineages within India provides evidence of a potential early route for human colonization in South Asia. There is a geographic cline in the presence of haplogroup M among ethnic (non-caste) populations of India ..., which decreases from approx. 71% of the total in the south to approx. 55% in the north ... This distribution is matched by a similar trend among caste populations ... of approx. 63% to approx. 50%. Both sets of figures support the idea that haplogroup M may represent the phylogenetic signature of an early, southern colonisation route in Asia.
... The early colonization of the Andaman archipelago by bearers of the M2 lineage supports the growing evidence of an early movement of humans through southern Asia and indicates that phenotypic similarities with African groups are convergent. It also suggests that early human migrants were capable of reaching all the islands of southern Asia and, therefore, Near Oceania, by the late Pleistocene. Such dispersal is consistent with the scattered distribution of negrito populations. All lines of evidence - social, cultural, historical, archaeological, linguistic, phenotypic, and genetic - support the conclusion that the Andaman islanders have been isolated for a substantial period of time. It is not currently possible to distinguish between two or more founding events and a single colonization followed by extensive population subdivision; a more detailed mtDNA phylogeny of south and southeast Asia may permit future work to differentiate between these two hypotheses. Whichever turns out to be correct, the implications for understanding the population dynamics of prehistory are profound. These findings illustrate the importance of sampling human biodiversity prior to significant modern admixture and extirpations and show that sequences derived from aDNA can have a significant role in the interpretation of contemporary human genetic distribution.
Other indicators of relationships
The genetic distance.
|
Population |
Veddoid Kadar (India) |
Negrito Aeta (Philippines) |
|||
|
rank |
genetic distance |
rank |
genetic distance |
||
|
Northern Indian |
1 |
554 ±101 |
4 |
1031 ±290 |
|
|
Dravidian |
3 |
610 ±160 |
3 |
893 ±192 |
|
|
Indonesian |
2 |
598 ±198 |
5 |
1054 ±362 |
|
|
Malaysian |
8 |
2176 ±1031 |
2 |
764 ±159 |
|
|
Filipino |
4 |
1169 ±777 |
1 |
345 ±82 |
|
|
Australian (aborigines) |
7 |
1983 ±535 |
9 |
1714 ±513 |
|
|
Papuan |
6 |
1826 ±789 |
8 |
1589 ±367 |
|
|
South African San (Bushmen) |
9 |
3018 ±1111 |
6 |
1256 ±326 |
|
|
West African |
10 |
3247 ±1190 |
10 |
2210 ±680 |
|
|
Kadar |
7 |
1550 ±357 |
|||
|
Aeta |
5 |
1550 ±357 |
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Basic data: body height, cephalic index and nasal index.
|
Population |
Male |
Female |
Year |
|||||||
|
Sample size |
Height in cm |
Cephalic index |
Nasal index |
Sample size |
Height in cm |
Cephalic index |
Nasal index |
|||
|
Negritos: |
||||||||||
|
North Great Andamanese |
50 |
148.5 |
82.00 |
93.01 |
50 |
138.5 |
81.95 |
94.76 |
1893 |
|
|
South Great Andamanese |
50 |
148.2 |
83.07 |
88.60 |
50 |
140.2 |
82.79 |
90.21 |
1893 |
|
|
Onge |
42 |
141.8 |
83.50 |
73.40 |
38 |
138.3 |
83.10 |
75.00 |
1928 |
|
|
Jarawa |
19 |
152.7 |
83.74 |
80.95 |
8 |
146.9 |
79.41 |
85.60 |
1985/1990 |
|
|
Possible relatives: |
||||||||||
|
Shompen |
25 |
159.1 |
80.06 |
74.52 |
11 |
148.7 |
80.79 |
73.75 |
1967 |
|
Basic finger and palmar dermatoglyphic data.
S=Sex (M=male; F=female); SS=Sample size (number of persons tested);
PII=Papillary intensity index; TFRC=total finger ridge count;
MLI=main line index
|
Population |
S |
SS |
Papillary pattern |
PII |
TFRC |
Palmar main line form |
MLI |
Year |
||||
|
Whorl |
Loop |
Arch |
11.9.7 |
9.7.5 |
7.5.5 |
|||||||
|
Negritos: |
||||||||||||
|
Great Andamanese |
M |
9 |
32.22 |
63.33 |
4.44 |
12.77 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
? |
1983 |
|
F |
5 |
44.00 |
56.00 |
? |
15.22 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
? |
1983 |
|
|
Onge |
M |
24 |
35.17 |
62.18 |
2.10 |
13.37 |
135.40 |
10.09 |
21.7 |
26.1 |
7.39 |
1963 |
|
F |
19 |
31.55 |
67.91 |
0.53 |
13.10 |
125.77 |
5.30 |
28.9 |
21.1 |
7.11 |
1963 |
|
|
Jarawa |
M |
12 |
55.93 |
42.37 |
1.69 |
15.42 |
170.62 |
37.50 |
33.33 |
16.67 |
7.63 |
1987 |
|
F |
5 |
71.43 |
28.57 |
? |
17.14 |
148.00 |
50.00 |
20.00 |
10.00 |
8.40 |
1987 |
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Shompen |
M |
20 |
46.2 |
54.8 |
? |
? |
? |
10.00 |
32.50 |
55.00 |
7.25 |
1977 |
|
F |
18 |
36.60 |
63.40 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
44.50 |
36.10 |
6.30 |
1977 |
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
South Nicobarese |
M |
30 |
41.3 |
52.7 |
6.0 |
? |
112.90 |
20.00 |
33.33 |
16.70 |
9.09 |
1977 |
|
F |
20 |
45.5 |
44.5 |
10.0 |
? |
101.65 |
22.50 |
17.50 |
12.50 |
9.70 |
1977 |
|
One set of figures available on the Andamanese refers to PTC (phenylthiocarbamide), a chemical that can be tasted by some people but not by others. The ability is genetically inherited.
Basic data: PTC tasting.
|
Population |
Sample |
PTC |
PTC |
|
Negritos: |
|||
|
Onge |
66 |
68% |
32%; |
|
Possible relatives: |
|||
|
Shompen |
56 |
64% |
36% |
|
Semang |
100 |
89% |
11% |
|
Neighbours |
|||
|
Bengalis (India) |
632 |
64% |
36% |
|
Population of Burmese ancestry in the Andamans |
208 |
80% |
20% |
|
Population of Indian (Bhantu) ancestry in the Andamans |
122 |
56% |
44% |
|
Malay (Malaysia, Singapore) |
287 |
83% |
17% |
|
Nicobarese (Nicobars) |
580 |
86% |
14% |
|
Tamil (India) |
1011 |
65% |
35% |
|
Thai (Thailand) |
516 |
91% |
9% |
|
Vietnamese (Vietnam) |
882 |
86% |
14% |
There are a number of other genetic characteristics that the Andamanese and a other groups in the Andamans and Nicobars have been tested for:
The ABO blood group system was discovered in 1901 and since it is of major importance in medicine, samples have been collected diligently from the remotest of people for nearly a century. Of no other human characteristic is so much data available. Unfortunately, the reliability of the blood data for assessing relationships between population groups is very limited.
Basic Data: Blood groups in the ABO system.
|
People |
Sample size |
Group O |
Group A |
Group B |
Group AB |
|
Negritos: |
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|
Onge and Jarawa |
40 |
27.5% |
57.5% |
5.0% |
10.0% |
|
Great Andamanese |
22 |
9.1% |
59.1% |
22.7% |
9.1% |
|
Semang (Malaysia) |
119; |
68.9% |
16.0% |
14.3% |
0.8%; |
|
Aeta (Philippines) |
452 |
49.3% |
33.2% |
13.5%; |
4.0% |
|
Possible relations: |
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|
Paniyan (Kerala, India) |
249 |
25.3% |
59.4% |
8.5% |
6.8% |
|
Shompen (Nicobars) |
55 |
100.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
|
Sakai (Malaysia) |
165 |
54.0% |
10.3% |
30.9% |
4.8% |
|
Veddas (Sri Lanka) |
51 |
47.0% |
9.8% |
41.2% |
2.0% |
|
Neighbours: |
|||||
|
Burmese (Burma) |
3027 |
35.7% |
24.5% |
32.3% |
7.5% |
|
Indians (general) |
? |
36.7% |
22.5% |
33.6% |
7.2% |
|
Population of Indo-Burmese ancestry in the Andamans |
514 |
34.2% |
22.8% |
34.8% |
8.2% |
|
Javanese (Indonesia) |
48964 |
40.2% |
27.3% |
26.0% |
6.5% |
|
Khmer (Cambodia) |
485 |
38.5% |
23.1% |
35.3% |
3.1% |
|
Maldivians (Maldives) |
211 |
34.6% |
24.6% |
33.2% |
7.6% |
|
Malays (Malaysia, Singapore) |
6077 |
38.3% |
25.0% |
29.5% |
7.2% |
|
Nicobarese (Nicobars) |
591 |
73.8% |
9.6% |
15.4% |
1.2% |
|
Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) |
569 |
50.8% |
18.8% |
26.9% |
3.5% |
|
Tamils (Sri Lanka) |
128 |
39.1% |
20.3% |
30.5% |
10.1% |
|
Thai (Thailand) |
50525 |
38.6% |
22.0% |
35.0% |
6.4% |
|
Vietnamese (Vietnam) |
114022 |
41.8% |
21.7% |
30.5% |
6.0% |
Clearly identifiable groups in which blood group A reaches more than 50% are extremely rare and all involve tiny populations. The Veddoid Panyan of southern India are one such group and there are other Veddoid groups in the same area with similarly unusual frequencies. On the other hand, the Veddas of Sri Lanka who gave the whole ill-defined grouping their name have a low frequency of A. Certain peculiarities of the Onge blood group picture suggests an affinity towards Melanesians in the Pacific as well as some connection with the Shompen of Great Nicobar. Authochtonous people on the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma also show what could be traces of the oldest population in their rather high and unusual frequencies of A and B. The whole of the Indonesian archipelago and Papua-New Guinea is scattered with tribes showing unusual frequencies. It has been suggested on the basis of blood frequencies that the Muruts of North Borneo, the Papuans of Schouten and Halmahera, the Bogobos, the Igorots of the Philippines as well as the Angami Naga of north-east India, the Sakai of Malaya, the Mois of Indo-China and all Negritos are related, representing a very ancient element of population that is also distantly connected to the Australian aborigines. The Negritos on the Malay peninsula and in the Philippines are undoubtedly related to the Andamanese, yet their blood frequencies are quite different, reflecting intensive and long-standing contact with their neighbours.
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Last change 1 November 2006
