Inhabitants Of This Isolated, Remote Island Kill All Visitors On Sight
July 17, 2015 #expanse
 
By August West
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One might think that with the vast reach of the Western world, there no longer remains any peoples unaware of the conveniences of modern society. We needn't look further than the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal to disprove this notion; this is where the Sentinelese live, and they're one of the last uncontacted peoples on Earth.

Estimates on their population vary greatly, in large part due to the hostility expressed by the islanders. Counts range from as low as forty, to as high as 500. Contact efforts have been made by Indian officials many times in the last century, and none of them have ended well. All recent observations of the island have been made from a great distance, and as such, getting an accurate headcount remains difficult.

The Sentinelese people are hunter-gatherers, and are thought to have "directly descended from the first human populations to emerge from Africa, and have probably lived in the Andaman Islands for up to 60,000 years," according to Survival International, a human rights organization founded to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.

As hunter-gatherers, it goes without saying that this group doesn't have any agricultural capabilities. More interestingly, there's no evidence that the Sentinelese have controlled fire. They're about as primitive a people as one might hope to find in 2015.

A film expedition flew over the island a few years back, and ended up with some of the best footage ever taken of the islanders. Check out the pictures and the clip below, and let us know what you thought in the comments on Facebook! Be sure to share this article with your friends.

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