Until the second quarter of our century, it was supposed that the land begun to be inhabited a milenium ago, however, certain anthropological and archaeological discoveries (of lithic utensils) prove that the island is inhabited since the Palaeolithic.
Anyway, it remains still impossible to respond satisfactorily to a main issue: who were and how did the remote ancestors of the contemporary people of Timor appear?
The unsufficiency of the archaeological studies doesn't allow secure conclusions, permitting a series of thesis. In one perspective, the primitive inhabitants of Timor ought to have arrived from the exterior in successive migrations. It is supported by the existence, even nowadays, of heterogeneous population nuclei in the south-east -- proto-Malayans, dendro-Malayans, Negritos, Dravidians and Melanesians -- with morphological and cultural characteristics similar to those of the people that presently live in the Insulindia (which includes the Sunda, Timor, Celebes, Borneo, Moluccas and Philippines islands amongst others). This observation is therefore presented as an indicium of the common origin of these people somewhere in south-east Asia. Here from should have parted the migrations, in the direction of north-west -- south-east, which's navigation is facilitated by the prevailling winds of the SE monsoon as well as the proximity and visual contact between isles. Also suggestive is the the rareness of pre-historic evidences towards south-east. (to be continued)