At the beginning of the 20th century, Senator Domenico Ridola gave his splendid collection of objects from archaeological excavations to the State. Later, the collection was enlargened and currently the museum is arranged in eight large halls, one of which is dedicated to Senator Ridola.
The collection includes numerous prehistoric, proto-historic and historic remains from the valleys of Basento and Bradano, from entrenched Neolithic villages of Murgia, Timone, Murgecchia and Serra d’Alto, as well as from caves.The ancient (Neolithic) oven from Trasano and the ceramics from Serra d’Alto are worthy of note.