Beyond the histogram. Improved approaches to simple data display in archaeology using kernel density estimates

Michael J. Baxter, Christian C. Beardah

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 1996, 7, 397-408

Abstract

The histogram is one of the most widely used descriptive statistical techniques in archaeology, but suffers from a number of well known problems. These include the dependence of its appearance on the choice of origin and interval width. Kernel density estimates provide an alternative to the histogram and avoid some of its problems. They have been little used in archaeology, probably because suitable software has not been widely available. We illustrate some of the advantages of kernel density estimates through several simple examples. Computation was done using the MATLAB package and routines written by the second author that are freely available. One issue in the use of kernel density estimates concerns a choice analogous to that of the interval width for a histogram. Our routines implement several approaches that are discussed in an appendix.

Figures

View figures in Interactive Atlas of Digital Images

Preview