Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in two groups of Italian Veneto speakers from Veneto

summary Although frequencies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups in the different Europeanpopulations are rather homogenous, there are a few European populations or linguistic isolates thatshow different mtDNA haplogroup distributions; examples are the Saami and Ladin speakers fromthe eastern Italian Alps.MtDNA sequence diversity was analysed from subjects from two villages in Veneto. The first,Posina,issituatedintheVenetianAlpsnear Vicenza.Thesecond,Barco diPravisdominiisavillageon the plains near Venice. In spite of their common Veneto dialect, the two group populations havenot preserved a genetic homogeneity; particularly, they show differences in T and J haplogroupsfrequencies. MtDNA diversity in these two groups seems to depend more on their geographicsituation. introduction Inmanystudiesofextanthumanpopulations,variations in gene frequency have been attri-buted to the geographic distance between popu-lations (reviewed in Wijsman & Cavalli-Sforza,1984). Although some extensive gene frequencygradients seem to be due to directional gene flow(Menozzi