This study uses macroecological approaches to test the impact of climate, social environment, inter-group borrowing and cultural history on vernacular house architecture among 1140 societies. The authors suggest that certain features will be influenced: wall materials, ground plan, roof shape, and floor placement. They use mixed binary and multinominal regressions models to test these predictions. The results strongly support that climatic drivers, cultural continuity, and inter-group borrowing predict three out of the four features: wall materials, roof shape, and floor placement. Social drivers are a strong predictor of every feature tested.

This study examines the association between post-marital residence patterns and dwelling size in pre-industrial societies using comparative methods and a global sample of 86 societies. The results suggest that matrilocality is associated with larger dwellings (over 65 square meters) in agricultural societies, while patrilocality is associated with smaller dwellings. The study also finds that sedentism is the single best predictor of house size. The study concludes that post-marital residence and house size evolve in a correlated fashion, which can help make reliable inferences about the social organization of prehistoric societies from archaeological records.

This article investigates a possible association between mobility strategy and dwelling construction. The author tests a broad hypothesis that planned duration of use for a structure is positively associated with the investment costs in building a dwelling. Some operational hypotheses are supported; others are not.

This study examines several correlates of the shape of floor plans of dwellings. Authors find that "whether a culture is settled or nomadic, the form of its family and the presence or absence of status distinctions are related to its house type, and the house types can in turn be inferred from the floor plan." Curvilinear houses are associated with polygyny and nomadism and rectilinear houses are associated with sedentarism, extended families, and status distinctions.

In the present study, Feather explores the relationship between floor plan shape and settlement permanence in order to theorize how mobility strategy influences floor plan choice. Feather incorporates the theoretical framework of previous studies by examining how floor plans and building materials vary across mobility and residential strategies, as well as social and political concerns.

Examines whether nomadism affects the ratio of average house floor area to average household size.

The relationship between restrictions on premarital sex and the privacy of sexual practices is examined, using the degree of impenetrability of house materials as both a proxy and assumed cause for "offstage" or private sex. The author theorizes that permissive premarital sex norms are a response to open dwelling types which are themselves an adaptation to warm temperatures.

This paper discusses the relationship between floor area and settlement population.

This paper investigates two mechanisms of cultural evolution: peaceful diffusion and warlike migration. Two societies, one for each mechanism, were compared to a base society on 11 culture traits. Eight of the 11 traits diffused more readily through peaceful borrowing than through warlike migration. The authors conclude that eliminating warlike migration would slow cultural evolution but that peaceful borrowing is a favored mechanism for culture contact and change.

A restudy of Naroll's (1962) measure of dwelling floor area using theory that it is predicted by the basic needs for protection from climate and crowding. This theory is not supported by the findings but Brown posits a new average for estimating floor area in dwellings based on his sample.