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AbstractCatholicism and Protestantism have different ways of promoting the family unit that could influence survival and fertility at a population level. Parish records in the Austrian village of Hallstatt allowed the reconstruction of Catholic and Protestant genealogies over a period of 175 years (1733–1908) to evaluate how religion and social changes affected reproduction and survival. Life history traits such as lifespan beyond 15 years, number of offspring, reproductive span, children born out of wedlock and child mortality were estimated in 5678 Catholic and 3282 Protestant individuals. The interaction of sex, time and religion was checked through non-parametric factorial ANOVAs. Religion and time showed statistically significant interactions with lifespan >15 years, number of offspring and age at birth of first child. Protestants lived longer, had a larger reproductive span and an earlier age at birth of first child. Before the famine crisis of 1845–1850, Protestants showed lower values of childhood mortality than Catholics. Comparison of the number of children born out of wedlock revealed small differences between the two religions. Religion influenced reproduction and survival, as significant differences were found between Catholics and Protestants. This influence could be explained in part by differential socioeconomic characteristics, since Protestants may have enjoyed better living and sanitary conditions in Hallstatt.

The Mexica Empire reached an outstanding social, economic and politic organization among Mesoamerican civilizations. Even though archaeology and history provide substantial information about their past, their biological origin and the demographic consequences of their settlement in the Central Valley of Mexico remain unsolved. Two main hypotheses compete to explain the Mexica origin: a social reorganization of the groups already present in the Central Valley after the fall of the Classic centres or a population replacement of the Mesoamerican groups by migrants from the north and the consequent setting up of the Mexica society. Here, we show that the main changes in the facial phenotype occur during the Classic–Postclassic transition, rather than in the rise of the Mexica. Furthermore, Mexica facial morphology seems to be already present in the early phases of the Postclassic epoch and is not related to the northern facial pattern. A combination of geometric morphometrics with Relethford–Blangero analyses of within- versus among-group variation indicates that Postclassic groups are more variable than expected. This result suggests that intense gene exchange was likely after the fall of the Classic and maybe responsible for the Postclassic facial phenotype. The source population for the Postclassic groups could be located somewhere in western Mesoamerica, since North Mexico and Central Mesoamerican Preclassic and Classic groups are clearly divergent from the Postclassic ones. Similarity among Preclassic and Classic groups and those from Aridoamerica could be reflecting the ancestral phenotypic pattern characteristic of the groups that first settled Mesoamerica.

Background: The first large-scale genome-wide association study of gallbladder cancer (GBC) recently identified and validated three susceptibility variants in the ABCB1 and ABCB4 genes for individuals of Indian descent. We investigated whether these variants were also associated with GBC risk in Chileans, who show the highest incidence of GBC worldwide, and in Europeans with a low GBC incidence. Methods: This population-based study analysed genotype data from retrospective Chilean case-control (255 cases, 2042 controls) and prospective European cohort (108 cases, 181 controls) samples consistently with the original publication. Results: Our results confirmed the reported associations for Chileans with similar risk effects. Particularly strong associations (per-allele odds ratios close to 2) were observed for Chileans with high Native American (=Mapuche) ancestry. No associations were noticed for Europeans, but the statistical power was low. Conclusion: Taking full advantage of genetic and ethnic differences in GBC risk may improve the efficiency of current prevention programs. ; Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) 01DN15021 European Union (FP7 Research infrastructures) within the initiative "Biobanking and Biomolecular Research Infrastructure -Large Prospective Cohorts" (Collaborative study "Identification of biomarkers for gallbladder cancer risk prediction Towards personali Germany's Excellence Initiative of Heidelberg University within the program "Mobilitaetsmassnahmen im Rahmen internationaler Forschungskooperationen 2015-16" support program "Stiftungen und Preise" of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet Heidelberg German Research Foundation (DFG) LO 2061/1 Biobank of University of Chile