Archaeological site museums in Latin America

Among the many topics considered in the literature are the history of museums, museums and nationalism, museum architecture, the relationship between museums and tourism, and museums as contested spaces of class display, identity formation, public culture, and representation. As commonly understood by archaeologists, an archaeological site museum is a building located at an archaeological site in which exemplary excavated materials from the site, and perhaps from related sites, are displayed, accompanied by explanatory texts that interpret the site and its archaeological culture for the public. Site museums in Latin America are particularly interesting because of the frequent tension they embody—narrative as well as real—between perceived pre-Hispanic glory, the usually disadvantaged situation of the local and/or descendant communities, and the pressure for development, often in the form of tourism. Site museums are another fascinating stage in the centuries-old and varied history of museums around the world, exemplifying the remarkable flexibility of this institution.