These Sentinelese hunter-gatherers are thought to have been on the island for 65,000 years. That’s 35,000 years before the last ice age and 55,000 years before the last mammoth died out. They are presumed to be direct descendants of the first humans out of Africa. A true link to our distant evolutionary past.

As you can imagine, the British attempted to explore and ultimately steal the place away from the tribe, but no attempt was ever successful. To pacify a violent tribe, the tactic commonly used by the British was to kidnap a tribal leader, treat him well, give him gifts and send him back to the tribe. If this didn’t work they would simply repeat the procedure until it either worked, or they were all dead from the white man’s disease. Failing that, they’d kill them all any way.

One attempt of this kind was made in 1880 by Maurice Vidal Portman. His crew landed on the island and wandered for a few days seeing nothing but a few paths and some abandoned villages. After trekking for days they came across two elderly tribes people and some kids, so they captured them and took them back to Port Blair to start their de-savaging process. The two older tribespeople promptly died, probably of Western disease, so the four children were given gifts and taken back to the island never to be seen again.

☛ More Tribes: Cargo Cults — Humans Will Believe Anything