Going back to collections: a study case of the Florentino Ameghino collection housed in the Museo de La Plata (Argentina)

Abstract

The historical Florentino Ameghino collection housed in the Museo de La Plata (Argentina) joined the 19th century international discussion about human antiquity. The collection comprises bones with evidences of anthropic modification from alleged Tertiary beds associated with extinct animals. According to the Argentinean naturalist Florentino Ameghino, these evidences proved the early presence of humans in the South America’s Southern cone. This analysis rules out the proposed intentionality behind the anthropic traces. Instead, most of the materials were remains of broken bones for marrow extraction. The revision of these historical collections is therefore crucial for obtaining up-to-date information to advance in current researches as methodologies to study them had highly developed in the last century. In this sense, museum collections become an alternative and powerful firsthand tool that preserves our non-renewable record of the past.