The First Sundaland People - The Negrito People of Southeast Asia

0:00 understanding the diversity of modern humans across the world is no easy task every continent has a convoluted history of diverse populations intermixing but based on our social construction of racial classifications it is typically relatively straightforward to guess which part of the world an individual may be rooted in but this is why race is a social rather than scientific construct because race does not have inherent physical or biological meaning for example guess where these people are native to Thailand what about this man the Philippines what about her Namibia and here's an even harder one guess where his people are native to Japan perhaps you can understand why racial

0:45 classifications are far from sufficient to understand human diversity this is especially the case with today's topic the negrito populations of Southeast Asia and yes negrito is the appropriate general term to refer to these people I would venture to say that most people know that the Aboriginal Australians are of dark complexion but scattered throughout southeast Asia are many other indigenous populations of dark-skinned people despite these people superficially looking as if they belong to the African continent in actuality they are much more closely related to East Asians many of these groups were the original inhabitants of these lands having Origins obscured deep within prehistory originally it was thought that the

1:31 negritos were a homogeneous population of closely related people though genetic studies quickly discovered that these populations are quite diverse and have quite an amazing genetic story the events of the prehistoric people in of Southeast Asia are enigmatic and sometimes controversial evidence from two caves in the Philippines and Malaysia suggest that this region was first inhabited between 50 to 70 000 years ago likely closer to 70 000 with knowledge of other discoveries a large-scale genomic study from 2009 established that all East and Southeast Asians originated from a single wave that migrated along the southern coastal route this migration spread out throughout the diverse terrain of East Asia

2:17 interbreeding with denisovans and replacing homozanensis homo floresciensis and likely other yet unknown hominins denisovans in particular left a significant effect on at least some of these people these hominins most closely related to neanderthals lived throughout much of Asia before the homo sapien populations moved in luckily the persistent isolation of negrito populations have allowed us to put together a fairly coherent story about how the first humans in this area interacted with these long-lost people ever since the denisovans were discovered through genetic testing it has been known that their genetics are widely distributed throughout East Asia and especially in Southeast Asia studies had routinely reported that Papa

3:04 winds melanesians and Australian aboriginals have between three to six percent Denise of An ancestry a 2017 study found that the ITA and agrito people from Luzon have the highest Denise of An ancestry yet tested and the other negrito groups of the Philippines have high levels as well importantly the study also found that the Adam and ease and Malaysian negritos show very low levels of Denise of An ancestry less than one percent considering that the negrito people appear to be some of the first anatomically modern humans to reach southeast Asia it appears that the nisavins were not interbred with significantly until The Wallace Line was crossed The Wallace Line is a final boundary line that separates the Asian and Australian regions

3:49 such high levels of Tunisia and DNA in Southeast Asia are only found past this line suggesting that either Denise have been populations were particularly high in this region or the modern humans who moved in bred with denisovins much more frequently than other populations did west of The Wallace Line regardless Denise of an admix here appears to have taken place in that common ancestor of the papuansanita this suggests that the admixture occurred after fifty thousand years ago likely around 44 000 years ago it also tells us that some of the negrito people of Southeast Asia have remained quite isolated from each other for a long time some groups may have been isolated from more than 50 000 years a 2021 study found that the Denise of in DNA found between Malaysian negritos

4:36 papuans and Aboriginal Australians was quite different suggesting different admixture events between all three groups these populations all seem to have run into different denisovan groups at different times significant adhesive in populations may have lived past The Wallace Line this may open the possibility that Denise events lived down into Australia though archaeological evidence does not support this whatsoever it is still so amazing how much we have learned from Denise Evans based largely on DNA evidence something that would have not been Possible only decades ago denisovan's likely to not last long after modern humans appeared in the area except in some remote areas genetic evidence appears to suggest that they went extinct in the region between

5:21 40 to 50 000 years ago the people who moved into these lands were the ancestors of the negritos and other australo-asian peoples though there are many other indigenous groups referred to as o-rang osley people that inhabit various regions of Southeast Asia notably in Malaysia they consist of a complex array of genetically distinct groups which appear to have been in the region for a very long time they are phenotypically and genotypically dissimilar from negrito populations though a 2012 study hypothesized that these populations are the results of an early train migration which occurred from Mainland South Asia between 10 to 30 000 years ago this migration seems to have led to the majority of the non-negrito indigenous groups of the region

6:08 these immigrants certainly interbred with negrito populations though to a limited extent the ancestors of modern negrito groups appear to have remained quite distinct from other indigenous peoples a recent study on the Manny negritos of Thailand found them to be closely genetically related to the samang people also known as the Malay negritos both of these groups carry ancestry linked with the animes and importantly the ancient hoab and he and hunter gatherers hunter-gatherers lived in South Asia in the modern countries of China Thailand Cambodia and even down into Sumatra their sites typically day two as far back as 12 000 years ago though some suggest the culture originated far deeper into pre-history this group appears to be unrelated to

6:54 the early train migration and appears to have mainly consisted of negrito people the existence of this culture suggests that the dark-skinned negrito peoples once had a much larger geographical range throughout Southeast Asia this is to be expected considering they appear to have been the first modern humans in the region Taiwan first inhabited around thirty thousand years ago appears to have originally been home to negrito people as well remains of a female hunter-gatherer from a cave in Taiwan from 6 000 years ago along with other skeletal evidence showed clear Affinity with australo melanesian peoples the Neolithic Farmers from China with more affinities to Northern Asians arrived in Taiwan around 6 000 years ago and would eventually completely replace

7:40 these hunter-gatherers interestingly to this day they maintain Legends of little black people on the island the last of which probably died hundreds if not thousands of years ago Taiwan is also very important because it appears to be the birthplace of the austronesians only after being in Taiwan for about a thousand years these crafty people developed complex saline and navigation technology this allowed them to spread their Neolithic culture to the countless islands of islands southeast Asia and eventually as far as New Zealand Easter Island and Hawaii the out of Taiwan theory is mainly based on linguistic evidence which links all austronesian languages back to the environmental conditions of Taiwan it is the third major migration that

8:27 shaped the genetics of Island Southeast Asia but regardless what is important for our understanding today is that this expansion had a disastrous effect on the indigenous populations that were already living throughout Island Southeast Asia and melanesia the Neolithic populations that migrated throughout the region hunted and fished so they relied on the cultivation of rice and millet the best area to grow their crops were along the coast the area in which most negrito people got their food the new migrants forced many of the Native inhabitants to retreat further Inland or to move to remote areas though even throughout the subsequent few Millennium of austronesian expansion negrito people have persisted into the modern day in significant numbers

9:14 now that we have a basic understanding of the history of the various negrito populations we must look further into genetics to give us a better understanding of who negrito people actually are perhaps the most frequently Asked question about these people would be what relation they have to African people clearly they physically resemble various groups from Africa though is it just superficial the answer is that it is superficial by all metrics these populations are as Eurasian as any other as mentioned earlier a 2009 study established that all East and Southeast Asians originate from a single wave that migrated along the southern coastal route onegrito people descend from the spazal wave though they split off from other Eurasian groups at least 38 000 years

9:59 ago they are most closely related to other East Asians even though they may not look like it it was once thought that they're supposedly African features were retained from their African ancestors a more recent research has identified that many of these traits independently developed within Asia for example Cambodian aboriginals are short with dark-skinned curly hair and Broad stuffed noses a 2022 study found that the genes that cause these features are under strong selection in their tropical rainforest environments they convergently evolved these features because they are advantageous in this environment this is the reason they resemble some sub-Saharan Africans because they are both adapted to a similar environment

10:45 mostly Gradle peoples remain predominantly hunter-gatherers until extremely recently this is also the case for pygmy populations and some others from Africa this just goes to show you how deceitful physical appearance can be these two are far more related to each other than anyone from Africa well that brings up another interesting question how related are negrito peoples to other neighboring populations besides negrito groups there were other indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia a 2012 study found that other indigenous groups from Malaysia do have genetic Affinity to Malaysian negritos it was not the same with every o-ring ausley group The sonoi appears closer to Malaysian negritos and others such as

11:31 the Proto malays though this genetic Affinity may be from recent introgression rather than a shared ancestry a study found that the negritos from Malaysia have a much higher genetic Affinity to andamin Island gritos the supports the view that the Malaysian agritos and the Andaman island agritos of the descendants of the pleistocene hoab and he and hunter-gatherers the study also found that the negrito populations especially the andamanese Ange have mainly basil East Asian ancestry this sets them apart from Australia melanesians such as papuans who despite looking similar have very different ancestry this finding once again supports a view that the negritos are the descendants of some of the first basal East Asians from

12:18 the region negrito populations of course persist today throughout southeast Asia and I feel it is important to talk about some of these groups one of the most widely known negrito groups would be the andamanese peoples these groups come from the Andaman and nicobar Islands which fall under Indian Territory they appear to be the original inhabitants of the islands and have likely been there for over 26 000 years the subgroups of these people consists of the great animes and the jarawas of the Andaman archipelago yange of little adamin and the sentinelese of North Sentinel Island many of these people have been decimated by contact with the modern world the Django people went extinct in the 1920s and every other tribe has vastly reduced the numbers except the remote

13:04 sent an Elise real contact has not been made with the sentinelese some of the last people in the world relatively Untouched by modern civilization for you guys I'm actually working on a sister video to this one all about the sentinelese it will be about 40 minutes long and will come out in a few weeks anyways moving East we find the Monique or many of Thailand they are the only negrito group of Thailand and by extent one of the only of Mainland Asia living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle they live in temporary bamboo Hudson live off the land historically they have been treated very poorly often being enslaved to be used as spectacle for the sultan they survived today at only around 300 people but appeared to be healthy

13:51 Malaysia is home to a number of negrito populations one known as the bad tick remain a nomadic hunter-gatherer Group which still inhabits the Taman nagara National Park another population that were traditionally hunter-gatherers known as the samang number around 5000 people the Philippines is also home to a diverse array of necrito groups many of which have high levels of Tunisia and ancestry as mentioned previously some of these populations such as the ATI of the visayas number at around 55 000. others only consist of a few hundred people the ITA people of Luzon are particularly famous for their dark-skinned tones short statures and curly hair though interestingly they have also a

14:36 high rate of lighter blonde hair this is telling of their peculiar ancestry their negrito population are thought to have been the descendants of some of the first people in the region but they also have a lot of austronesian admixture and mostly speak austronesian languages they remain a fairly numerous group at just over 50 000 people in the modern day the idea people also have some of the highest levels of denisovan DNA in the world at between three to nine percent certainly a fascinating group of people in conclusion the negrito people of Southeast Asia are some of the most interesting human populations on our planet it represent some of the earliest modern human populations to enter the area some researchers have advocated that

15:22 they should be referred to as the first Sunderland people instead of the admittedly outdated sounding term negrito these very diverse groups have taught us a lot about the history of the region and also human evolution and admixture in general though many of these populations have had very troubled histories of exploitation many receive support from their governments in recent years and we can only hope this continues thanks for watching make sure to follow all my social media particularly Instagram and leave a like and comment to help out the channel I want to remind you all that another large video on North Sentinel Island will be coming out soon it will exhaustively cover the Island's history and everything we know about the enigmatic sentinelives people

16:08 I hope to see you all there [Music]