Imputation methods for mixed datasets in bioarchaeology.

Missing data is a prevalent problem in bioarchaeological research and imputation could provide a promising solution. This work simulated missingness on a control dataset (481 samples × 41 variables) in order to explore imputation methods for mixed data (qualitative and quantitative data). The tested methods included Random Forest (RF), PCA/MCA, factorial analysis for mixed data (FAMD), hotdeck, predictive mean matching (PMM), random samples from observed values (RSOV), and a multi-method (MM) approach for the three missingness mechanisms (MCAR, MAR, and MNAR) at levels of 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% missingness. This study also compared single imputation with an adapted multiple imputation method derived from the R package "mice". The results showed that the adapted multiple imputation technique always outperformed single imputation for the same method. The best performing methods were most often RF and MM, and other commonly successful methods were PCA/MCA and PMM multiple imputation. Across all criteria, the amount of missingness was the most important parameter for imputation accuracy. While this study found that some imputation methods performed better than others for the control dataset, each imputation method has advantages and disadvantages. Imputation remains a promising solution for datasets containing missingness; however when making a decision it is essential to consider dataset structure and research goals. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-024-02078-2.