title: Human settlement history between Sunda and Sahul: a focus on East Timor (Timor-Leste) and the Pleistocenic mtDNA diversity.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Distinct, partly competing, "waves" have been proposed to explain human migration in(to) today's Island Southeast Asia and Australia based on genetic (and other) evidence. The paucity of high quality and high resolution data has impeded insights so far. In this study, one of the first in a forensic environment, we used the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM) for generating complete mitogenome sequences via stand-alone massively parallel sequencing and describe a standard data validation practice.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this first representative investigation on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation of East Timor (Timor-Leste) population including >300 individuals, we put special emphasis on the reconstruction of the initial settlement, in particular on the previously poorly resolved haplogroup P1, an indigenous lineage of the Southwest Pacific region. Our results suggest a colonization of southern Sahul (Australia) >37 kya, limited subsequent exchange, and a parallel incubation of initial settlers in northern Sahul (New Guinea) followed by westward migrations <28 kya.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The temporal proximity and possible coincidence of these latter dispersals, which encompassed autochthonous haplogroups, with the postulated "later" events of (South) East Asian origin pinpoints a highly dynamic migratory phase.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal. sibylle.marcialgomes@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Sibylle M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. martin.bodner@i-med.ac.at.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bodner
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal. lsouto@ua.pt.|Cencifor Centro de Ciências Forenses, Coimbra, Portugal. lsouto@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Souto
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. bettina.zimmermann@i-med.ac.at.
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. gabriela.e.huber@i-med.ac.at.
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. christina.strobl@i-med.ac.at.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Strobl
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. a.w.roeck@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Alexander W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Röck
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. alessandro.achilli@unipg.it.|Dipartimento di Chimica, Biologia e Biotecnologie, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy. alessandro.achilli@unipg.it.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achilli
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. anna.olivieri@unipv.it.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Olivieri
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. antonio.torroni@unipv.it.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torroni
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. fgoncalves@fmed.uc.pt.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Côrte-Real
authors.affiliation: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Müllerstr. 44, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. walther.parson@i-med.ac.at.|Penn State Eberly College of Science, University Park, PA, USA. walther.parson@i-med.ac.at.
authors.forename: Walther
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Parson
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics; D001315:Australia; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics* / Q000266:history; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics; D049690:History, Ancient; D063426:Human Migration / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D049648:Timor-Leste
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial