Contrary to what you might expect, there is some debate over who first settled Madagascar. Some anthropologists believe Madagascar was first settled 2,000 years ago by Indonesians, not black Africans, and that mainland Africans did not arrive in Madagascar until a later date. Others suggest that the people of Madagascar descended from Indonesians and Africans who mixed before their arrival on the isolated island. Regardless, most experts agree that Madagascar’s inhabitants arrived relatively recently (there is no evidence of a stone age in Madagascar and the island was settled around the time Polynesians reached some of the planet’s most isolated islands ) and that subsequent migrations have brought other groups (like Arabs and Indians) into the mix.
