Padma awardee Dr Thangaraj had found that Andaman tribes share ancestry with oldest humans

Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj, one of India's leading geneticists, and his team studied the DNA of the indigenous Jarawa and Onge communities of the Andaman Islands in 2005. Their research showed that these groups trace their ancestry to some of the earliest modern humans who migrated out of Africa around 65,000 years ago. Dr Thangaraj received the Padma Shri in 2026.