Dr K. Thangaraj: the scientist who found a 65,000-year-old story in Andaman DNA

Some of the oldest chapters of human history are written in the DNA of a few tribes in the forests of the Andaman Islands. The scientist who read them is Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj, a geneticist at CSIR-CCMB (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology), Hyderabad.

The Andaman discovery

In 2005, Dr Thangaraj and his colleagues published a study in the journal Science on the DNA of Andaman tribes, the Onge and the Great Andamanese.

Their finding: these tribes descend from the earliest humans to leave Africa. Those first migrants moved along the coast, by the southern coastal route, and reached the region about 65,000 years ago.

Dr K. Thangaraj. Frame from Day1 Startup Media's reel

Two ancient populations behind most Indians

In 2009, a study in the journal Nature by David Reich, Dr Thangaraj and colleagues showed that most Indians today descend from two ancient populations: the Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and the Ancestral South Indians (ASI).

ANI and ASI: two ancient streams behind most Indians today. Graphic: Day1 Startup Media

Three decades of work, and a Padma Shri

Dr Thangaraj has spent more than three decades at CCMB. In 2026, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in the field of Science and Engineering.

His work is a reminder that history is not only in books and ruins. Some of it is in our own DNA, waiting for someone patient enough to read it.

Sources

• CSIR-CCMB, Dr K. Thangaraj's profile
• Science (2005), the Andaman study (PubMed)
• Nature (2009), Reich, Thangaraj et al. (PubMed)
• PIB, Padma Awards 2026 announcement
• The Hindu, CCMB scientist K. Thangaraj gets Padma Shri