A ship was set off course by a storm in A.D. 830. The ship was an Indonesian ship. It landed on what is now called Madagascar.  Madagascar is an island located off the coast Southeast of Africa. The people on this ship were around 3,000 miles from their home. Around twelve survivors landed at this location from the ship. A computational biologist, Murray Cox, from Massey University in New Zealand says that this event from many years ago could have marked the origins of the first settlements that house 22 million individuals. It has been suggested that the Malagasy natives on the island are mostly from Indonesian descent. Cox explains that the DNA patterns are evident in Madagascar today.  He explains that 30 percent of the native women have the same mitochondrial DNA. This DNA is the kind passed from mother to child. This shows us that there is less diversity than in an average population. Most typical populations show less than two percent. This evidence suggests a big recent growth from a small population of founders.       Information obtained at www.discovermagizine.com and picture were pbtained from www.nocookie.com and www.worldatlas.com