Madagascar may have been settled by a group with only about 30 women.
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Madagascar may have been settled by a group with only about 30 women.

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. 

Lemurs are native to Madagascar.
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Incorrect.
It's a Fact
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, all 113 species of lemurs — weighing anywhere from 22 pounds to just one ounce — are native to the island of Madagascar. Sadly, deforestation and climate change have endangered 90% of them.

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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Numbers Don’t Lie
Number of islands bigger than Madagascar, including Borneo, New Guinea, and the biggest of all — Greenland
3
Approximate number of islands along Madagascar’s 3,000+ miles of coastline
250
Approximate percentage of flora and fauna in Madagascar found nowhere else
90%
Years ago that Madagascar separated from the African continent
160 million
The first known female ruler, Queen _______, was a tavern-keeper in the Sumerian city of Kish.
The first known female ruler, Queen Ku-baba, was a tavern-keeper in the Sumerian city of Kish.
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Think Twice
New Zealand was the last major landmass to be discovered (besides Antarctica).

Australia has been inhabited by humans for some 50,000 years, but in nearby New Zealand the story is much different. Archaeologists have used radiocarbon dating, pollen analysis, DNA evidence, studies of animal extinction rates, and more to determine when East Polynesians, the ancestors of the Māori people, arrived on the shores of New Zealand. While experts can’t be sure of the exact year, some think that early settlers arrived in New Zealand in double-hulled canoes between 1250 and 1300 CE. That would make New Zealand the last major landmass to be settled by humans (except Antarctica, which is more or less inhospitable).

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