The archaeological inventory of the Andrés Barbero Museum in its historical and sociocultural context

Abstract

The Dr. Andrés Barbero Ethnographic Museum (MEAB) is an academic-historical museum that houses, among its collections, ethnographic and archaeological objects from the indigenous societies of Paraguay, being the oldest of its kind in the country. The collection was inventoried and cataloged by its first directors Max Schmidt and Branislava Susnik who had theoretical training in the European historical-cultural school. When viewing this process chronologically and critically in the socio-cultural context of their time, a change in criteria is observed that involves first an almost identical adhesion of European data classification scheme by Dr. Schmidt and later followed by an attempt to adapt to the demands of the environment and the contexts of local studies by Dr. Susnik. These changes are also reviewed with the evolution of the concept of heritage, motivated by international institutions and the signing of international agreements, plus conventions that established new standards and views on museum collections, especially those belonging to indigenous societies. For this reason, this paper aims to analyze the MEAB inventory from its creation to the present, taking into account that in Paraguay no studies are referring to the cataloging processes of museum collections and especially of archaeological museums, so this work is considered to be a new contribution to the topic.