Archaeologists believe that around 800 CE, the first settlers arrived in Madagascar, a large island 250 miles off the coast of southern Africa. In doing so, these travelers completed a journey that experts now call "one of the most unusual, and least understood, episodes" in human history. It's strange enough that an island so close to the Cradle of Humankind in Africa didn't establish a permanent settlement until only 1,200 years ago. Stranger still is the fact that these settlers may have had only 30 women among them, who hailed not from nearby Africa but instead from 3,500 miles away.
The Native people of Madagascar are known as Malagasy, and both their DNA and language are extremely similar to those found in Indonesia. Although these facts are undeniable, evidence for how such a link was possible was remarkably scarce for decades. In 2012, scientists conducted mitochondrial DNA screenings of Malagasy and Indonesian populations to learn more about the original founding population of Madagascar (mitochondrial DNA is passed through women). They discovered that these Indonesian settlers likely only had 30 women of reproductive age among their number, a shockingly low number for establishing a population, with 98% of them from Indonesia. (Research on the Y chromosomes of men in Madagascar has shown the male founders were also Southeast Asian, although it's not clear how many there were.) This evidence supports a theory that these travelers were likely blown far off course and accidentally landed on Madagascar, rather than being part of an intentional colonization effort. In addition, archaeological research published in 2016 found ancient traces of Southeast Asian crops, such as mung beans and rice, in Madagascar, which the first settlers must have brought with them. Although they were so far from home, this small band of settlers persevered, creating one of the world's most fascinating cultures in the process.
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