The Ethnographic Museum is an institution dedicated to research, dissemination and conservation of historical and anthropological heritage, from the perspective of social processes and respect for cultural plurality.

It has vast collections of archeology, ethnography and biological anthropology.

Although he has been interested mainly in the aboriginal populations of the current Argentine territory and other areas of the American continent, he has also valued objects from different parts of the world.

The archaeological heritage comes mostly from northwestern Argentina and Patagonia and was largely gathered by systematic research organized and funded by the museum itself since its foundation.

But it includes a broader anthropological background, representative of what at the beginning of the 20th century was called the "primitive world": potteries and weavings of the Andes, vessels of classical Greece, Central American funeral offerings and even prehistoric pottery of present-day Japan.

The area of biological anthropology has about 10,000 bone pieces of individuals from different populations and some mummified bodies.

The ethnographic collections correspond mainly to the material culture of the ethnic groups that have populated what is now the territory of Argentina.

They also include goods from other societies: feather art of the Chaco, pottery of the Pueblo Indians, African carvings and of Easter Island, pieces of Oceania, cult objects of different religions.

The Ethnographic has a library specialized in anthropology and a photographic and documentary archive.

It is currently the headquarters of several research groups of the Faculty, the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research and other institutions.