This article focuses on an important part of the history of Bolivian museums, specifically on that of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) and its precursors, which can be traced back to the first Public Museum of La Paz founded in 1846. Based on existing documentation, this paper provides an approach to the character of these exhibitions over time, relating them to the prevailing political discourses of each period. Finally, a more detailed approach is taken to discuss recent MUSEF periods, and the way in which the concept of chaîne opératoire has been used to articulate the pre-Hispanic with the present (a very strong separation that stems from the revolutionary nationalism of the 1950s) through material bridges.