The article analizes the process of acquisition of the Wagner Chaco-Santiago del Estero archaeological collection, excavated by the brothers Duncan and Emilio Wagner in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, in the 30s, for the foundation of the Historical Museum of the Province of Santa Fe, Dr. Julio Marc (Rosario, Argentina), in 1939. The hypothesis is that the collection was acquired in order to materialize the Museum & PRIME;s institutional script, based on what I call an "official narrative of mestizaje (miscegenation) ". I am interested in exploring the tensions produced in the objects & PRIME; displacements in/from collections and museums in Latin American postcolonial contexts, and in contributing to the still incipient research on the Marc Museum, from a postcolonial perspective that presents a subalternist inflection, by interpellating and questioning patrimonial accumulation as practices carried out by archaeologists, anthropologists, and elite members developing programmes in cultural institutions.
