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 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.

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.

This short article argues that formulae utilized by archeologists for deriving populations from the floor areas of dwellings are flawed. The formulae in question are that of Naroll (1962), Clarke (1971), and Cook (1972) and he argues that each of these is either incorrect or simply too narrow or too broad. The author then puts forth his own formula for multifamily dwellings which he tests against a dataset of nine New World ethnographic examples. Finally, the author concludes that this type of formula needs to change depending on the type of dwelling in question.

The study suggests an archaeological indicator of matrilocal versus patrilocal residence. The cross-cultural samples suggest that matrilocal versus patrilocal residence can be simply and accurately predicted from the living floor area of the average house in the society.

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.

This article employs logistic regression to test the relationship between house floor area and marital residence. Results indicate there is an association, but the relationship is stronger in a solely agricultural sample and nonexistent in a non-agricultural sample. This is likely due to the tendency for mobile groups to build several smaller homes for faster and more efficient household construction. Overall the authors suggest that floor area alone should not be taken as a sole indicator of marital residence.

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

This study tests four hypotheses that propose potential environmental and social predictors of toolkit size and complexity among hunter-gatherers. Hypotheses predicting relationships between population size, residential mobility, type of food resources and toolkit structure are not supported. Risk of resource failure is the only variable that is significantly associated with toolkit structure.

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.