Recently, a study was published in the European Journal of Human Genetics. In this study, scientists from India have reported finding the genetic heritage of the people of the Nicobar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Key Highlights
- The team conducted a detailed analysis of genetic data collected from 1,559 individuals across South and Southeast Asia. They found ancestral ties between the Nicobarese and the Htin Mal community, a population from the Laos-Thailand region.
- The Nicobarese were also found to have retained their Austroasiatic language roots — a language family spanning Southeast Asia — of the Khmuic branch.
- The Andaman and the Nicobar Islands are separated by the Ten Degree Channel, which is around 150 km wide. Though they’re close to each other, the peoples of the two islands have significantly different physical features, which also differ from those of the people of mainland India.
- The Nicobarese, who are of Mongloid Stock are a large population of over 27,000. They are horticulturist and pig-herders inhabiting large permanent villages mostly close to sea shore.
- They are not divisible into tribes, but there are distinctions, chiefly territorial.
(Source: The Hindu)
