Madagascar is renowned for its extraordinary
animals, particularly lemurs, a group of primates
extinct elsewhere on the planet. ---- The island was
one of the last places on earth to be settled by
people, receiving its earliest migrants in the middle
of the first millennium. Moreover, despite
Madagascar’s proximity to Africa – 400 km at the
closest point – those settlers have long been
suspected of having arrived from the Malay islands
– modern Indonesia – more than 6,000 km away.