Why, in Guns, Germs and Steel, is Madagascar referred to as the single most astonishing fact of human geography?Is it because the Borneo's ended up...

Diamond refers to Madagascar as an “anomaly” due to its
diversity of peoples and its unusual language.  Madagascar is inhabited by two peoples –
African blacks and Southeast Asians.  What is significant is that Madagascar is only 250
miles of the African coast but completely across the Indian Ocean from Asia and
Australia.

Similarly, an unusual language is spoken on the
island. The language spoken by all the people of Madagascar is Austronesian and is very
similar to that spoken on the island of Borneo.   Borneo is over 4,000 miles across the
Indian Ocean.  Diamond states:

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“No other people remotely resembling Borneans
live within thousands of miles of Madagascar…. It’s as if Columbus, on reaching Cuba,
had found it occupied by blue-eyed, blond-haired Scandinavians speaking a language close
to Swedish, even though the nearby North American continent was inhabited by Native
Americans and speaking Amerindian languages. ” p.
381

Archeologists have
revealed that the early settlers on Madagascar had iron tools, livestock and crops. 
Based upon this Diamond believes the “…colonists were not just a small canoe load of
fishermen blown off course; they formed a full-fledged expedition.”  Somehow these
prehistoric peoples sailed 4,000 miles without advanced tools or
knowledge.