**6. Conclusions**

The results show that there was a decreasing progression on the energy a dwelling is equal to throughout the sedentary process. This evolution was broken in its last step by the settled agricultural communities, the pueblos, since their adobe dwellings are equal to a similar amount of energy of those used by the nomad and seminomadic groups.

This value is linked to the morphology of the analyzed building and to its building materials, but it is not related to the zone where it is set up.

Two theoretical ideas were developed to obtain this conclusion. First, the equivalent energy was the value designed to indicate the capacity of a building to transform the outdoor conditions into the indoor ones. It means that the building itself is understood as if it was a machine and its power is quantifiable. Second, a statistical method was brought from botany and archaeology to

architecture. The canonical correspondence method allows us to establish links between quantitative data and qualitative information. This way, it transforms the morphological characteristics of a building into numerical information, in such a way that both quantitative and qualitative data can be related graphically.

From these bases, the present research will go on. On the one hand, the equivalent energy will be calculated and analyzed for current buildings. On the other hand, the canonical correspondence analysis will be used to determine the relation between more examples of vernacular architecture and their corresponding environments. This is the architectural field where it can be more useful, since the design of this type of dwelling derives directly from the limitations imposed by nature.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, M.J.M.B., H.S.Á.d.T., R.A.G.L. and A.G.d.M.; methodology, R.A.G.L. and A.G.d.M.; software, M.J.M.B., R.A.G.L. and A.G.d.M.; validation, H.S.Á.d.T., R.A.G.L. and A.G.M; investigation, M.J.M.B. and H.S.Á.d.T.; writing—original draft preparation, M.J.M.B.; writing—review and editing, M.J.M.B.; supervision, H.S.Á.d.T., R.A.G.L. and A.G.d.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** Special thanks are due to the First Nations House of Learning and the Museum of Anthropology (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), as well as to the Library of Congress and to the Smithsonian Archives (Washington, D.C.) for the indispensable information provided for the present research. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

**Appendix A**

**Figure A1.** Location of the archaeological sites. Source: Own elaboration over Google Earth Pro 2017© cartography.


**Table A1.** Archaeological sites.


**Table A1.** *Cont.*




**Table A2.** *Cont.*

\* [92]; \*\*In order to obtain the data about tipi hides, we used the information about other nomad tents whose envelopes were also made from animal skins. First, we used the information about goat skins presented in the research carried out by Shady Attia [93]. Second, we also took the information about yurt envelopes generated by Peter Manfield [94]. \*\*\* [95].

**Table A3.** Details of the building materials which compose the template called "Timber frame-superinsulated" from DesignBuilder v6.1.2.005.


The aforementioned template contains more building materials, but only the information about those which were assigned in the present research is contained in the previous table.




**Table A4.** *Cont.*


**Table A4.** *Cont.*

**Table A5.** Data used in PAST v3.25.


**Table A5.** *Cont.*

