Olvido y desecho.

In this article I present some reflections on the conditions that enable mandates of forgetting and estrangement in the processes of safeguarding fragmentary archaeological pieces or tepalcates in Mexico based on the case of the Department of Comparative Archaeological Collections of the National Institute of Anthropology and History. Through an ethnography of this department and the narratives of the archaeologists who are members of the team I delve into the condition of impossibility and illegibility of certain pieces as well as the difficulties in the administration of official collections of archaeological projects in Mexico derived from the cumulative method of evidence, as a strategically incomplete “archaeological puzzle”. Thus, I propose some reflections on the forms of constitution of relations of forgetting and discarding on fragmentary archaeological materialities concentrated in this type of collections.