Three collections of spindle whorls from Calixtlahuaca, Mexico

This dataset consists of a single spreadsheet of standard metric and non-metric data for three collections of spindle whorls from the Postclassic site of Calixtlahuaca, Toluca Valley (State of Mexico), Mexico. The collections are from the 2007 Calixtlahuaca Archaeological Project excavations, the Museo de Antropología y Historia in Toluca Mexico, and the Yale Peabody. This dataset accompanies the following article: Huster, Angela C. 2013 Assessing Systematic Bias in Museum Collections: A Case Study of Spindle Whorls. Advances in Archaeological Practice 1(2):77-90. Below is the abstract for this article: Archaeologists often overlook museum collections for research purposes due to concerns about the representativeness of the artifacts in the collection. Such concerns can be addressed by comparing non-scientifically produced collections to collections of known standing, such as those from more modern projects, using the same exploratory data analysis and basic statistical methods that archaeologists use to compare sets of artifacts in other situations. As a case study, this article compares spindle whorls recovered during the 2007 excavations at the Aztec site of Calixtlahuaca with two museum collections of whorls attributed to the site. A variety of metric and non-metric traits were recorded for each item in the three collections and were compared using Kolmogrov-Smirnov, Chi-square, and Fisher’s exact tests. Both museum collections show a bias toward more elaborately decorated pieces, but with varying side effects on other attributes of analytical interest.本数据集包含一份单一电子表格，收录了来自墨西哥墨西哥州托卢卡谷地卡利斯特拉瓦卡（Calixtlahuaca）后古典时期遗址的三批纺轮（spindle whorls）标本的标准度量与非度量数据。该三批藏品分别来自2007年卡利斯特拉瓦卡考古项目发掘出土标本、墨西哥托卢卡的托卢卡人类学与历史博物馆（Museo de Antropología y Historia）藏品，以及耶鲁大学皮博迪博物馆（Yale Peabody）藏品。 本数据集配套发表于以下学术论文： 哈斯特，安吉拉·C.（Huster, Angela C.） 2013年 《评估博物馆藏品的系统偏差：以纺轮为案例的研究》，发表于《考古实践进展》（Advances in Archaeological Practice）第1卷第2期，第77-90页。 以下为该论文的摘要： 考古学者出于对藏品中古器物代表性的顾虑，常将博物馆藏品排除在研究之外。这类顾虑可通过以下方式得到解决：采用考古学者在其他场景下比较成套出土器物时所用的探索性数据分析与基础统计方法，将非科学采集的藏品与具有明确出土背景的藏品（如近代考古项目出土的标本）进行对比。作为案例研究，本文将2007年在阿兹特克遗址卡利斯特拉瓦卡发掘出土的纺轮，与两批标注为该遗址出土的博物馆藏纺轮进行了对比。研究人员为三批藏品中的每件标本记录了多项度量与非度量特征，并采用柯尔莫哥洛夫-斯米尔诺夫检验（Kolmogorov-Smirnov）、卡方检验（Chi-square）与费希尔精确检验（Fisher’s exact test）开展对比分析。两批博物馆藏纺轮均存在偏向装饰更繁复标本的偏差，但在其他具有分析价值的属性上呈现出各异的附带影响。