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The "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 coupl

The "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 ago
There 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
  The Independent article I linked specifies that it's talking about the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island. The account it gives is from a researcher who was involved in the contact efforts the Wikipedia article you link briefly mentions in the paragraph that begins, "In the early 1990s. . . " Also, look at the Wikipedia page for North Sentinel Island. The two articles give different lists of encounters with the Sentinelese that are only partially overlapping.

ganeshkrishnan 10y ago

There 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
The Independent article I linked specifies that it's talking about the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island. The account it gives is from a researcher who was involved in the contact efforts the Wikipedia article you link briefly mentions in the paragraph that begins, "In the early 1990s. . . " Also, look at the Wikipedia page for North Sentinel Island. The two articles give different lists of encounters with the Sentinelese that are only partially overlapping.