The Archaeological Museum of La Serena was founded on April 3, 1943, by the researcher Francisco Cornely Bachman, thanks to the sponsorship of the First Municipality of La Serena. Cornely studied Diaguita culture in the Elqui Valley in the 1930s, and his work served as the basis for the first institutional collections.
The community enthusiastically joined the initiative and their donations expanded the heritage responsibilities of the museum.
In 1948, it was transferred to the then Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums (Dibam), and that same year it was incorporated into the Serene Plan of President Gabriel González Videla, which financed the construction of an own building for the institution.
Its construction was completed in 1954 and is located at the corner of Cienfuegos streets with Cordovéz, in the typical area of ??La Serena. Its facade includes a baroque portal, rescued from an old colonial house in the city, belonging to the Count of Villa Señor.
Recently, its dependencies were expanded (4-story building and 2 underground floors), and a project to improve the infrastructure of its traditional building began, which will conclude with a new museum layout.
The museum has a record that exceeds 12,000 objects, distributed in three sections:
Archeology: It characterizes all the regional pre-Hispanic cultures of the Chilean semi-arid north (Atacama-Coquimbo), as well as some stocks from the rest of Chile and Latin America.
Ethnography: Exhibits cultural expressions of the main ethnic groups of the national territory, such as Mapuche, Rapa Nui and Selk'nam.
Paleontology: formed by fossils of vertebrates and invertebrates, mainly of marine origin.
The museum also has a Bio-Anthropological Collection of around 1,500 individuals, which were found in various sites, mostly belonging to the Coquimbo Region. They include El Olivar, Peñuelas, El Cerrito, Los Choros, among others.
Most of the pieces belong to the archaeological section and come from excavations carried out by researchers from the institution itself.
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