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Comment
. 2016 Mar 16;283(1826):20152184.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.2184.

Problems modelling behavioural variation across Western North American Indian societies

Mary C Towner  1 , Mark N Grote  2 , Monique Borgerhoff Mulder  2
Affiliations
Comment

Problems modelling behavioural variation across Western North American Indian societies

Mary C Towner et al. Proc Biol Sci. .
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Boxplots of summed absolute standardized β coefficients for S, P and E: (a) reproduction of fig. 1b in [1], without outliers and truncated at a summed value of 80 (omits 35 S, 83 P and 54 E values > 80); (b) modified figure of the same data, including outliers and truncated at a summed value of 800 (omits 13 S, 31 P and 18 E values > 800).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Spatial warping produced by PCA on a pairwise distance matrix: (a) cultures plotted by Lat/Lon coordinates, with points shaded by a latitudinal gradient; (b) cultures plotted by spatial PC scores on dimensions one and two (data obtained from electronic supplementary material S1 in [1]), with shading scheme carried over from panel (a). PCA on the pairwise distance matrix introduces artificial nonlinear relationships between cultures and compresses spatially distinct cultures along a parabolic curve. The dashed horizontal line at PC2 = 10 demonstrates that cultures well separated by latitude may share the same value on PC2. Shading by a longitudinal gradient produces similar graphs. Spatial relationships adequately described by latitude and longitude together are obscured in the PC space.
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References

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