Human population genetics of the Mediterranean

This special issue of the Annals of Human Biology offers a summary of the current knowledge about the human population genetics of the Mediterranean Basin, in the form of both review papers and research articles. The review papers in the issue stress the importance of uniparental markers (mitochondrial DNA and the non-recombing region of the Y-chromosome) in clarifying the genetic contributions of the various groups involved in the population of the Mediterranean area. As far as the research articles in this issue are concerned, they analyze the genetic pools of the various populations located along the Mediterranean coasts, with a special attention to the genetic structure of Italian populations, because Italy, situated in the middle of the Mediterranean Basin, was the site of a complex network of migrations and colonization. This special issue offers an interesting point of view in the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of our species, because it shows that uniparental markers, markers commonly used in forensic genetics and also the surname analysis can still be considered useful tools in the study of a particular and complex situation, such as the Mediterranean populations’ genetics.