Section MOLECULAR ANTHROPOLOGY – NEW ADVANCES RECONSTRUCTING THE HUMAN GENETIC HISTORY OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA. <...> AUTOSOMAL AND UNIPARENTAL MARKERS YIELD PARALLEL RESULTS ON THE PRESENCE OF AFRICAN SIGNATURES IN THE ANDALUSIAN POPULATION STRUCTURE Reales Guillermo1 Fortes-Lima Cйsar2 Toulouse, France 3 , Hernбndez Candela L.1 , Rodrнguez Juan4 , Dugoujon Jean-Michel2 , Calderуn Rosario1 1Departamento de Zoologнa y Antropologнa Fнsica, Facultad de Biologнa, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain 2Laboratoire d’Anthropologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que (CNRS), Universitй Paul Sabatier, Dipartimento di Biologia, Universitа Tor Vergata Rome, Italy 4Servicio de Hematologнa, Hospital Juan Ramуn Jimйnez, Huelva, Spain The analysis of contemporary human population structure based on numerous and varied markers in genomic regions, and combined by careful sampling strategies is helping us to answer many important questions on human history. <...> Such studies are performed in different geographic scales. <...> The Mediterranean area – a biodiversity hotspot with well-defi ned characteristics in its geography, archaeology and anthropology – seems to harbour an important fraction of the world human genetic diversity. <...> The Iberian Peninsula, given its location in the south-western corner of Europe and in the immediacy of Africa, has had a decisive role in Europe peopling. <...> Within Iberia, Andalusia – the southernmost region of Spain – deserves a special attention, as it has been a human crossroad open to numerous and different human populations and cultures from all around the Mediterranean. <...> Here we summarize some key results obtained by our team after surveying western and eastern Andalusian population structure, regarding mtDNA and Y-C variation, along with other informative autosomal markers (e.g. GM and APOE). <...> Our data reveal that certain African maternal (e.g. U6 and L) and paternal (e.g. E-M81) lineages are particularly detectable in Andalusians and neighbouring Atlantic Iberian populations. <...> APOE polymorphism –main Alzheimer’s disease susceptibility marker– revealed a somewhat similar landscape in Andalusia and Morocco, thus interrupting its prevalent trend in Europe. <...> The above scenario is consistent with the relatively high incidence of the Sub-Saharan GM 1,17 5* haplotype in south-western Iberia <...>