TIL that the most uncontacted people in the world, the Sentinelese, live in a hunter-gatherer society that isn’t even known to make fire.

The Sentinelese (also called the Sentineli or North Sentinel Islanders) are the indigenous people of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands of India. One of the Andamanese people, they resist contact with the outside world. They are one of the uncontacted peoples, although like all of today’s so-called uncontacted people they have a history of limited contact.

Comparative map showing the distribution of Andamanese tribes in the Andaman Islands – early 1800s versus in 2004. Notably:
(a) Rapid depopulation of the original southeastern Jarawa homeland in the 1789–1793 period
(b) Onge (in blue) and Great Andamanese shrinkage to isolated settlements
(c) Complete Jangil extinction by 1931
(d) Jarawa move to occupy depopulated former west coast homeland of the Great Andamanese, and
(e) Only the Sentinelese zone is somewhat intact

The population is estimated at 40 to 500. In 2001, Census of India officials recorded 21 males and 18 females. This survey was conducted from a distance and may not be accurate for the population which ranges over the 59.67 km² (14,700 acres) island. The 2011 Census of India recorded 12 males and three females. Any effect from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting tsunami is not known, other than the confirmation obtained that they had survived the immediate aftermath.

Author Heinrich Harrer described one man as being 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 in) tall and apparently left handed.

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Wikipedia