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An Indian Ocean island with a community that has been there for 60K years (2015)
- saintPirelli 10y agoCareful with that source though, they post some pretty questionable stuff on their facebook.
- oever 10y agoThere has been contact with the Sentinelese a few times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island
- iamtew 10y agoThat's a very interesting read, thanks for sharing. This one is also quite nice I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples > Uncontacted peoples, also referred to as isolated peoples or lost tribes, are communities who live, or have lived, either by choice (peoples living in voluntary isolation) or by circumstance, without significant contact with global civilization.
- hydrogen18 10y agoThe 60,000 year figure is pretty dubious. Also saying they've avoided contact or still live in the stone age probably isn't true. Obviously they are ignorant of the workings of helicopters and modern fishing vessels, but they likely understand what the purpose of them is. So they've been contacted, they just prefer not to interact. Given that they live on an island, I'll bet they make use of all sorts of materials that wash ashore. Even a torn plastic tarp is very useful compared to having to make one by hand from some plant material. So culturally they are likely completely isolated, but likely very aware of the changes going on in the world outside their island.
- 67726e 10y agoConsidering the origin of the term "cargo cult" I sincerely doubt they understand what technology they've seen.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoTheir ethnic makeup and technology, combined with the location leads to the 60000 year figure. They are closely related to the first emergents from Africa.
- touristtam 10y agoI agree, seeing this is a major red flag.
- sctb 10y agoThank you, we've updated the link from http://themindunleashed.com/2015/07/the-people-of-this-isolated-tribe-kill-anyone-approaching-their-island.html http://themindunleashed.com/2015/07/the-people-of-this-isola... to this.
- teh_klev 10y agoTo be honest this isn't much better. The Daily Fail is fairly near the bottom of the UK tabloid gutter press pile. Would be better to link to the Wikipedia article instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
- UhUhUhUh 10y agoAgreed. And it seems even worse with the outfit they took the story (and the title) from.
- partycoder 10y agoOne reason of why the Sentinelese remain uncontacted is because they might not be immune to diseases and contact could kill them.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoThey don't know that. But it is one of the reasons why contact has been prohibited by law.
- partycoder 10y agoIn the middle ages they didn't knew about infectious diseases, but they did blame foreigners for plagues or simply "bad luck".
- pessimizer 10y ago"In January 1880, an armed British expedition to the island led by 20-year-old Maurice Vidal Portman, the local colonial administrator, arrived to conduct a survey of the island, and to take a prisoner, in accordance with British policy regarding unwelcoming tribes at the time, which was to kidnap a member of the tribe, treat them well and give them gifts, and release them back to the tribe, hoping to demonstrate friendliness. Portman's expedition of the island is believed to be the first by outsiders. While the Sentinelese tended to disappear into the jungle whenever outsiders were spotted approaching, Portman's expedition found an elderly couple and four children after several days. They were taken prisoner and brought to Port Blair. The elderly couple became ill and died, probably from contracting diseases to which they did not have immunity. The four children were returned to the island, given gifts, and released. The children then disappeared into the jungle. After this incident, the British did not try to contact the Sentinelese again and instead focused on other tribes." I imagine that what those children spread amongst the islanders could be what makes them so aggressive to outside contact now.
- Pica_soO 10y agoNot even observations with a disinfected drone?
- bayesian_horse 10y agoDrones (in the quadcopter-sense) are too noisy to make observations on Human groups without getting their attention. And then they would still throw stuff at the drones. If at all, you'd need something alike a military surveillance drone, and even then the tree cover would make it difficult.
- terminado 10y agoNot entirely true. At 200 meters in altitude, many quad-copters under 5 kilograms are pretty much inaudible. With a telephoto lens, and 40 minuets of flight time inbound, 15 minutes of loitering, and 40 minutes of return flight, you could probably begin to catalog substantial data, without being invasive. You wouldn't be able to ingress beyond tree canopy, but quad-copter drones aren't the greatest at negotiating tree cover to begin with. You'd only be able to capture the beaches. Sticking to the beaches, and remaining above a certain altitude, the sound of the ocean would probably cover up much of the actual propeller and motor noise that reaches the ground. This would be a very expensive operation, given the remote destination. Nothing an individual could accomplish. But it's a concept within reach, using off-the-shelve consumer technology, if you've got the budget, and the logistical support to pull it off.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoAt 200 meters of altitude they still see the drone. With telephoto lenses, it doesn't make sense to use multicopters any more, in my opinion. Not even a quadcopter can track objects on the ground precisely enough, just by positioning its body, so the camera needs a gimbal, with some kind of automatic tracking. At that point, a bigger, fixed wing drone would be better, I think.
- Razengan 10y ago[0], from [1]. I can almost see the next scene in the village being the start of new religion, à la the opening to Star Trek: Into Darkness [3] :) [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Índios_Isolados_4.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Índios_I... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxE2DLZ-tA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxE2DLZ-tA
- hive_mind 10y agoUnbelievable. I hope they can be studied with compassion and care. Not with violence and hate. And I hope they can be gently introduced to modernity without reducing them to janitors in Mumbai. Also, the article claims it's located between Myanmar and Indonesia. That's just wrong. It's apparently located in the Andaman Islands, which are claimed by India.
- Pica_soO 10y agoWhy introduce to modern society at all? Keep them around as a fresh start, should singularity or environmental collapse make that necessary?
- bayesian_horse 10y agoIt's not about "introducing them to modern society", but rather to establish contact and communication. Maybe learn something about them, and being able to help when a disaster strikes the island. A population of 50-500 individuals must be extremely fragile, even if they survived on that island for so long. They could become infected through anything, even bird excrement or something, also tsunamis or other bad weather. It would be helpful to respond to a crisis.
- ra1n85 10y agoWhat makes you think they'll be treated with violence and hate? I would avoid introducing them to modernity at all. They've been there for thousands of years without issue, why interrupt now? Let them be.
- bunderbunder 10y agoThe "avoid contact for 60,000 years" bit is quite the embellishment. We only have detailed history being recorded about the island going back for, what, a couple centuries, maybe? For the rest of that time, we've got nothing. Other sources tell a very different story from this site, which seems to be cherry-picking the historical record. The Wikipedia article documents several probable periods of contact in relatively recent history. That time in the 19th century where a large group of people shipwrecked on the island and lived there for a while before being rescued certainly counts. It wasn't peaceful contact at all, but it was prolonged, and a couple decades later British explorers were able to land on the island and explore - finding a largely depopulated landscape, presumably as a result of disease. See also this account of peaceful contact a couple decades ago: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/islanders-running-out-of-isolation-tim-mcgirk-in-the-andaman-islands-reports-on-the-fate-of-the-1477566.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/islanders-running-ou... (edit: Looks like the title and link have both been updated. The "avoid contact for 60,000 years" was a direct quote from the original title, and the original link went to http://themindunleashed.com/2015/07/the-people-of-this-isolated-tribe-kill-anyone-approaching-their-island.html http://themindunleashed.com/2015/07/the-people-of-this-isola...)
- ganeshkrishnan 10y agoThere are couple of tribes on those Islands (Andaman and Nicobar). Some of the tribes have been contacted, some have never been reached (and are off-limits) while some tribals have moved mainland in search of jobs and have mingled with the mainlanders. One of the tribal language went extinct because most of their tribe moved mainland and learnt Hindi/English/Tamil http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1964610,00.html http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1964610,00... This article should talk about specifically the Sentinelese tribe (but they are mixing up Bo and Andamanese tribes with Sentinelese). As far as we know there has been no contact with them ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese The rare sighting of them was during the boxing day tsunami and they had enough knowledge to predict it few hours before and move to higher ground.
- bunderbunder 10y ago
- s3arch 10y agoWhen I read about them long time ago, they reminded me of those tribes in the movies "The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and "The Gods must be crazy." Those tribes always consider outsiders to be a threat. I wonder what theories might Sentinelese have formulated about the world. When they see and hear loud voices of planes. Or distant light on the night sea. What do they conclude?
- davidw 10y agoThe tribe in "Gods" was quite friendly with other people.
- machbio 10y agoreading this incidence of contact by British (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese#Incidents_of_contact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese#Incidents_of_conta...) - might have had a very bad perception of modern humans - they kidnapped an elderly couple and four children, the elderly couple died and those four children might have gone through some horrors that might have influenced them to be aggressive towards the modern humans
- saalweachter 10y agoMinor nit: you have to be careful with the term "modern humans"; the islanders in question are also modern humans.
- sjclemmy 10y ago> While privileged people are eating £15 burgers and splashing £100 on new trainers, the near-naked Sentinelese are surviving off the land and hunting for sea creatures. Ah, The daily mail. Let's open a McDonald's and ship in some Adidas. That'll make them happy. I'm surprised they didn't use the word savages.
- keiferski 10y agoI read that sentence as mocking Westerners' consumerism, not glorifying their burger-and-trainer spending habits.
- GordonS 10y agoNot familiar with the "The Daily Hate" them? I rather think they did mean it as the OP said.
- yummyfajitas 10y agoIf there is an advanced civilization with better shoes than Aasics and better food than Shiv Sagar restaurant, I'd love it if they made contact and let me buy some of their stuff. Doubly so if they also have cures for heart disease, cancer, old age and other things that are likely to kill me. How would you justify depriving the sentinelese of these wonders, as the Indian government is currently doing?
- sjclemmy 10y agoYou'd have to buy their stuff using their currency, which you could only get by engaging in unfamiliar activities they called 'work', which you probabably wouldn't understand and wouldn't be very good at. In fact the only work you would be able to get would be making said 'aasics', the pay for which wouldn't be enough for you to buy a pair. How ironic! Etc. Etc...
- yummyfajitas 10y agoYeah, the idea of living in an advanced civilization and learning new things sounds horrible! I hope I never need to leave the place I was born or be exposed to new cultures. That would be so awful! (Oh wait, I'm writing this from a city about 10,000 miles from where I was born. I haven't spoken to anyone from my own country in over a month. Should I also be suffering in some way?)
- brudgers 10y agoWikipedia on the Sentinelese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese On North Sentinel Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
- gonmf 10y agoRight now, somewhere in that island is a child that wished she could live to be older than 30, while we culturally sensitive outsiders do not dare disturb her way of life.
- taway_1212 10y agoIs life expectancy that low in such communities? I know it was around 30 in medieval Europe, but it had worse climate, epidemics carried over across the continent, overpopulation, constant wars and kings/lords/church robbing people of a big part of their food.
- Mikeb85 10y agoThere's a myth (perpetuated by Paleo diet people and others) that hunter gatherers were in ideal health and agriculture ruined it. The opposite is in fact true, hunter gatherers were short lived and agriculture is what gave humans the first great advance in longevity.
- cgh 10y agoThat is incorrect. Once you account for infant mortality, life expectancy at birth dropped with the advent of agriculture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy That said, diet probably isn't as crucial to longevity as we'd like to think. Hunter/gatherer populations got (and get) a lot of exercise and lead relatively low-stress lives. For example, the Tsimane of Bolivia eat animals and starch and have practically no heart disease. They walk around a lot and are generally a happy bunch. Probably the only thing that would increase life expectancies more would be actual medical care, particularly regarding parasites.
- ptaipale 10y agoDrop of infant mortality (particularly, through having enough food) is what the advent of agriculture achieved, so this is like saying "people died younger, except those who didn't".
- lando2319 10y agoI originally heard about North Sentinel Island right here on Hacker News via this story [1]. One thing I found really interesting is how people credit their proximity to more desirable islands as one of the reason they have survived in (relative) isolation so long, since the other Andaman Islands were first to be exploited. Also interesting is how the Sentelese didn't sail great distances like many Polynesian groups, they used small boats with long sticks which could only be operated in shallow waters. This kept them relatively tethered to the island. I can't help but wonder what it's like there, what's the day to day like? I understand the ethical concerns, nevertheless I can't help but wonder what we could learn from a youtube live feed of the main camp site. [1] http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island/ http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island/
- mr_overalls 10y agoMaria sighed at the TV. The Suitor had gotten boring this season - same old petty drama, same self-absorbed contestants using the facade of competition to build their personal "brands" for acting careers. So after making sure that the kids were asleep, Maria logged into her VPN, activated Torta, and navigated to a tomato that was rumored to be hosted out of Kyrgyzstan. It was called "Dark Island". For three years now, the series had surveilled the lives of an isolated tribe, the Etcamanese, to whom fire and agriculture were unknown. It was apparently filmed from an array of a dozen or so high-end video cameras embedded in biomimetic robotic vultures, so the coverage was spotty. But despite the alien language and the majority of Etcamanese life happening outside of the video feeds, bits and pieces of the usual human drama were obvious: domestic squabbles over leaking huts, rivalries in love, medical emergencies due to snakebite. And because there were only 272 people on the island, a regular cast of characters had emerged. Old man Onge, leader of the largest village, seemingly blind to the abusive behavior of his two sons. Gentle-voiced Senga, clubfooted, but the most skilled weaver of fishing nets - would she ever find love? The number of people on the island, mysteriously enough, never seemed to change. Births always occurred the same day as deaths, with women apparently ingesting herbs to induce premature delivery if necessary. There suggestions of infanticide as well. It was a favorite topic on the discussion forums. And although the language was still untranslated, some clever NLP algorithms by a group Pakistani Island-heads had begun to yield tantalizing clues. Led by UxBhutto07, they had determined that Etc1, the everyday dialect, had a strangely consistent grammar, with a system of tenses and declensions that seemed to contain no irregular forms. Their system of numbers seemed unusually complex as well, in base 8, with a suffix indicating prime numbers. (There were related, heated threads about the strange taboos concerning thumbs.) Etc2, a sung language, seemed to be used only at night, and in a ritual context. It was completely different from Etc1, and had eluded all attempts at decryption. The site's main page loaded more slowly than usual, and Maria saw that the number of forum threads had tripled from the day before. The top thread was: "Where did 27 new people come from? And why is everyone singing?"
- narrator 10y agoI wonder sometimes if North Sentinel Island is Earth, the Sentinelese are us and the rest of the world is the rest of the galaxy.
- johan_larson 10y agoDo we have a history of killing alien visitors?
- satysin 10y agoMaybe? NASA have been hiding a second sun from us for all these years who knows what they are up to! ;)
- kobeya 10y agoI know you're joking but what is this in reference to?
- johan_larson 10y agoThe hypothesized Planet Nine? It's predicted to be way smaller than a star, though.
- pault 10y agoThat's nothing. The real outrage is the cover up of anti-earth.
- johan_larson 10y agoI'm just waiting for the day some hapless clerk clicks the wrong checkbox and accidentally reveals the Savage Land to the world.
- satysin 10y agoYup, tis just a joke :) http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/paul-cox-nasa-second-sun_uk_57582fbfe4b00691936504d1 http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/paul-cox-nasa-second-s...
- ptaipale 10y agoThe ways of the people at Andaman Islands were popularized by Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes novel "The Sign Of The Four".
- mrkgnao 10y agoRelated, probably from an old HN story: http://www.probashionline.com/madhumala-chattopadhyay-first-friendly-contact-with-the-sentinelese-jarawa-andamans/ http://www.probashionline.com/madhumala-chattopadhyay-first-...
- redsummer 10y agoIt's a shame that any significant contact would wipe the Sentinelese out. Even a common cold infection would be the end of them. If we wanted to learn anything about the Sentinelese, then perhaps we could use well-camouflaged camera traps, and other electronic eavesdropping devices. The moral considerations are difficult - it's a privacy breach, but the information would also be valuable not only to their descendants (should contact be made), but also to science generally. I think I would be happy if my Viking ancestors had been filmed 1000 years ago.
- blisterpeanuts 10y agoThe trick is to install the devices. It's their island and they probably know every inch of it. How to land on the beach, sneak around and plant surveillance devices (that ideally are solar powered and broadcast their data to some offshore station), and get off undetected? And hope the devices aren't discovered and tossed into the ocean? Also, the equipment would need to be totally sterile. Mighty though our civilization is, we lack the technology to spy on an isolated Stone Age tribe like this. Rather humbling.
- Klathmon 10y agoPersonally I don't think we lack the technology at all, just the motivation.
- zeristor 10y agoWhilst there is a concern of them being exposed to the common or garden pathogens, I imagine they don't have the population to sustain much genetic diversity. The survivors of the Bounty Mutiny suffered heavily from inbreeding after several generations.
- anotheryou 10y agohttp://www.livescience.com/289-north-america-settled-70-people-study-concludes.html http://www.livescience.com/289-north-america-settled-70-peop...
- Fzzr 10y agoWith such a small population, wouldn't inbreeding be a problem?
- peterwwillis 10y agoNot according to some studies. During a period of the last ice age, only around 1,000 reproductive homo sapiens were around, possibly as low as 40 breeding pairs (after the Tuba eruption)
- snambi 10y agoLooks like click-bait.
- glitcher 10y ago> To protect the Sentinelese people - and visitors - the Indian government has established a three-mile exclusion zone I was curious if I could find any other notable features visible from the satellite images, and noticed a boat well within the "exlclusion zone": https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5271578,92.2834124,478a,35y,4.31h/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5271578,92.2834124,478a,35y,...
- ocschwar 10y agoIt's a shipwreck from the 1970's. The crew was attacked by natives, and had to be rescued by helicopters. Natives and invaders have been reclaiming the wreck's iron ever since.