The use of complete mitochondrial genomes from a brown bear population in north-western Eurasia allowed us to identify phylogeographical structure, signatures of demographic history and spatial processes that had not previously been detected using shorter sequences. These findings have implications for studies on other species and populations, especially those exhibiting low mtDNA diversity. The relatively recent divergence estimates for haplogroups highlight the significance not only of the last glaciation but also of climatic fluctuations during the post-glacial period for the divergence of mammal populations in Europe. Our spatial genetic method represents a new tool for the analysis of genetic data in a geographical context and is applicable to any data that yield genetic distance matrices, including microsatellites, amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).