This article investigates unsupervised classification techniques for
categorical multivariate data. The study employs multivariate multinomial
mixture modeling, which is a type of model particularly applicable to
multilocus genotypic data. A model selection procedure is used to
simultaneously select the number of components and the relevant variables. A
non-asymptotic oracle inequality is obtained, leading to the proposal of a new
penalized maximum likelihood criterion. The selected model proves to be
asymptotically consistent under weak assumptions on the true probability
underlying the observations. The main theoretical result obtained in this study
suggests a penalty function defined to within a multiplicative parameter. In
practice, the data-driven calibration of the penalty function is made possible
by slope heuristics. Based on simulated data, this procedure is found to
improve the performance of the selection procedure with respect to classical
criteria such as BIC and AIC. The new criterion provides an answer to the
question "Which criterion for which sample size?" Examples of real dataset
applications are also provided