South Andamanid Phenotype - Face Features & Origin

Average Face

Averaging the portraits behind South Andamanid leaves the features that repeat and erases the ones that do not. That is exactly how the South Andamanid composite below was built: individual photographs were aligned and statistically merged, exaggerating shared structure into a single reference face that no actual person looks like.

Composite source: Human Phenotypes — South Andamanid

Geographic Distribution

Geographically, South Andamanid anchors to 10.7° N, 92.5° E (South Asia). That is the point where historical anthropologists judged South Andamanid most concentrated, not a hard edge; modern migration and intermarriage have long since softened whatever boundaries once existed.

Physical Characteristics

Bluish brown-black skin, kinky or peppercorn hair.

• Very short, ectomorph to endomorph, mesoskelic
• Body proportions show no sign of pygmyism
• Females often steatopygic
• Brachycephalic, mildly hypsicranic, small-headed
• Mildly platyrrhine nose
• Chin weak, prognathy mild
• Compared to North Andamanid, more robust with a rounder face, wider nose, and shorter head

Historical Background

Isolated type typical for the Little Andamanese people (Onge, Jarawa, Sentilese). After contact with Europeans in the 19th century populations collapsed, mostly due to disease. A few hundred remain today with Jarawa being the most populous, and Sentilese one of the last Stone Age tribes without closer contact to the modern world.

Research History & Naming

Typological names were coined, contested, and renamed repeatedly across the 20th century, and South Andamanid is no exception. The extract below records the researchers who defined South Andamanid, the alternative labels it accumulated, and where the modern consensus settled.

Eickstedt (1928) found Little Andanamese to be anthropometrically distinct from the Great Andamanese. Biasutti followed in recognising them as the Onghi subvariety ( Biasutti, 1967 ). Detailed investigations by Cipriani (1956) . Modern research confirms the genealogical distinctiveness of the two groups (Abbi, 2008) . Often simply regarded as Andamanid ( Lundman, 1967 ; Alexeev, 1979 ; Knussmann, 1996 ).

Comparison With Nearby Phenotypes

Ranked by great-circle distance from South Andamanid's reference center, these are the five nearest documented phenotypes — the closest being North Andamanid at 215 km. Overlapping distributions like these are exactly what makes the quiz hard, and the North Andamanid row is where to start looking.

South Andamanid in the Game

When the South Andamanid composite shows up in the quiz, players who know the South Asia distribution pattern have the edge. The reference answer sits near 10.7° N, 92.5° E; pins on the wrong continent score close to zero, so even a rough regional instinct beats a precise but misdirected pin.

South Andamanid Phenotype FAQ

Where does the South Andamanid phenotype come from?

Historical sources center the South Andamanid phenotype on 10.7° N, 92.5° E (South Asia). Treat that as a rough anchor: the type appeared across a wider surrounding area — its nearest documented neighbors, North Andamanid and Jahai Semangid, sit 215 and 1,142 km from the reference point — and its present-day distribution no longer matches the historical map.

What does the South Andamanid phenotype look like?

The composite emphasizes recurring traits: bluish brown-black skin, kinky or peppercorn hair. The full trait list for South Andamanid appears in the physical characteristics section above.

Is the South Andamanid phenotype a race or a nationality?

No. Phenotypes like South Andamanid are descriptive averages, not ancestry groups. South Andamanid is one of several types documented in and around South Asia — see the comparison table above — and the same individual can carry traits associated with several of them at once. The South Andamanid entry describes a statistical pattern, not a group of people and not a nationality.

How does South Andamanid appear in the game?

When the South Andamanid face comes up in Classic Daily or Challenge Mode, you pin the world map where you believe the type is historically most common, and the score decays with your distance to 10.7° N, 92.5° E. Fair warning: the nearest other entry in our dataset, North Andamanid, sits just 215 km away, so this face rewards precise placement — the right country alone is not always enough.

References & Literature

Every claim on this page traces back to the sources below — the researchers who defined, measured, and argued over the South Andamanid type. The originals behind the South Andamanid entry are worth consulting directly.

• Eickstedt, E. von. 1928. Das Rassenbild des westlichen und zentralen Hinterindien. In: Anthropologischer Anzeiger (5), 176-187.
• Biasutti, R. 1967 (1941). Le Razze e i Popoli della terra. 4th Ed. Vol 1-4. U.T.E.T., Torino.
• Cipriani, L. 1956. Report on a survey of the Little Andaman 1951-53. Bull. Depart. of Anthrop. 2. Calcutta.
• Abbi A. 2008. Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? Language Sciences.
• Lundman, B. 1967. Geographische Anthropologie. Rassen und Völker der Erde. G. Fischer, Stuttgart
• Alexeev, V. P. 1979. The Differential Geography of Races. In: Stini, W. A. Physiological and Morphological Adaptation and Evolution. De Gruyter.
• Knussmann, R. 1996. Vergleichende Biologie des Menschen: Lehrbuch der Anthropologie und Humangenetik. 2ed. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag.

Related Phenotypes

If South Andamanid interested you, these neighboring phenotype entries cover adjacent parts of the map with distinctly different trait bundles.

• North Andamanid

  South Asia · 215 km away

  Almost extinct, isolated type endemic to the Andaman Islands. Particularly in Great Andamanese groups, rarer in other Andamanese. After cont...

• Jahai Semangid

  Southeast Asia · 1,142 km away

  Semangid variety, a Paleolithic relict of the original Malaysian forest population. Shows more Veddoid/Australoid features and is similar to...

• Shanid

  Southeast Asia · 1,222 km away

  Sinoid South Mongolid type, typical in the (Irrawaddy) plains and the Shan Plateau of Myanmar. The name derives from the Shan people, who mi...

• East Shanid

  Southeast Asia · 1,267 km away

  Eastern variety of Shanid, weakly influenced by Veddid. Typical for the plains and river valleys of Indochina, especially from North Thailan...

• Semangid

  Southeast Asia · 1,271 km away

  Paleolithic, Negriform phenotype found in the forests of the Malay Peninsula, similar to Aetid. Even older and rarer than the cohabitant Sen...

Further Reading

Background articles from the blog that explain where the South Andamanid type fits, how these composites are built, and what a face can and cannot tell you.

• Ethnic Guesser: Which Facial Cues Actually Decide a Round

  A round of the game turns on a handful of facial cues, and they are not equal. Here is how pigment, the epicanthic fold, nasal shape...

• Guess My Ethnicity: What One Guess Can Carry

  When someone types guess my ethnicity, they are asking a stranger to place a bet, and the odds depend far more on the list of labels...