The Mediterranean: State-of-the-Art and Future Issues International Symposium was jointly organized by the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the French Embassy in Egypt, the Institute of Research and Development and Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse, France).

The event aimed to bring together different scientific groups coming from all walks of life, as well as to encourage future collaborative joint studies.

The themes of the symposium were:

1) Present genetic diversity in the Mediterranean Basin.

2) Human selection and evolution in the Mediterranean Basin, biological and cultural factors.

3) Ancient populations of the Mediterranean Basin, from the lower Paleolithic age to the creation of the first states (Egypt), biological and cultural data.