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 book examines the difference between warless and warlike societies and attempts to determine the point at which a society becomes warlike. The author suggests that differences between warless and warlike societies are mostly organizational and hypothesizes that "unsegmented" societies, or societies that have a weaker sense of group identity and cohesion, will be more likely to be warless than "segmented" societies. Several tests are presented. Results generally support the hypothesis.

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.

This article uses factor analysis to identify the key variables underlying the many cross-cultural associations reported by Textor (1967). Twelve factors are identified.

Explores 109 traits relating primarily to physical habitat, economy, political and social organization, and religion, to see how they relate to the role and treatment of the aged. General patterns were sought. Numerous ethnographic examples are given.

Drawing from Social Darwinism theories, this article posits warfare (specifically, military success) as a selective mechanism in the evolution of culture. The hypothesis was not supported.

This book examines the characteristics of warlike and warless foraging societies, as well as the transitional stages that occur when a society becomes warlike. Several predicted correlates of warfare frequency are supported.

This article analyzes the predictors of private property ownership with an aim to replicate existing correlations using data from the dissertation of Zelman (1974).

In "The Urban Revolution" (1950), V. Gordan Childe hypothesized ten traits of civilization: urban centers, occupational specialization, monumental buildings, taxation by and/or tribute to elite, isolation of ruling group(s), writing, art, long-distance trade, social solidarity reinforced through common ideologies, and state formation. The author of this study analyzes these traits, and in particular, the presence of written language, with data from two different databases, one ethnographic and one archaeological. He finds that written language is highly correlated with the other traits of civilization as hypothesized by V. Gordan Childe.

Author proposes and presents evidence in support of the theory that most societies practice virilocal or patrilocal residence (this is the "normal" pattern" and that matrilocal residence is adopted when societies migrate to an already populated area.