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Material culture
Material culture is the aspect of social reality
grounded in the objects and architecture that surround
people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and
trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and
rituals that the objects create or take part in. Some
scholars also include other intangible phenomena that
include sound, smell and events,[1] while some even
consider language and media as part of it.[2][3] The term
is most commonly used in archaeological and
anthropological studies, to define material or artifacts as
they are understood in relation to specific cultural and
historic contexts, communities, and belief systems. Pottery is an easily recognised form of material
Material cultural can be described as any object that culture as it is commonly found as archaeological
humans use to survive, define social relationships, artifacts, representing cultures of the past
represent facets of identity, or benefit peoples' state of
mind, social, or economic standing.[4] Material culture is
contrasting to symbolic culture, which includes nonmaterial symbols, beliefs, and social constructs.

The scholarly analysis of material culture, which can include both human made and natural or altered
objects, is called material culture studies.[5] It is an interdisciplinary field and methodology that tells
of the relationships between people and their things: the making, history, preservation, and
interpretation of objects.[6] It draws on both theory and practice from the social sciences and humanities
such as art history, archaeology, anthropology, history, historic preservation, folklore, archival science,
literary criticism and museum studies, among others.

Contents
Material value
History
Contributors
Archaeology
Anthropology
Sociology
Heritage industry
Current production
See also
References

Material value
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Research in several areas looks into the reasons for

perceiving an object as having meaning. Common
reasons for valuing material lie in their monetary or
sentimental value.

A well-known related theory is Kahneman's endowment

effect theory. According to Kahneman, people infuse
objects they own with a higher value than they do if they
do not own the object.[7] The endowment effect is found
to occur as soon as an item is acquired and the effect Roman coin, the aureus
increases over time.[8]

Another way in which material can hold meaning and value is by carrying communication between
people, just like other communication forms such as speech, touch and gesture. An object can mediate
messages between time or space or both between people who are not together. A work of art, for
example, can transfer a message from the creator to the viewer and share an image, a feeling, or an
experience.[9] Material can contain memories and mutual experiences across time and influence
thoughts and feelings. A study found that couples who have more items that were jointly acquired and
more favorite items among them had higher-quality relationships.[10]

Researchers from the fields of sociology, psychology, and anthropology have also been fascinated by gift-
giving, a universal phenomenon that holds emotional meaning using material culture. According to
Schieffelin, "gift-giving is a vehicle of social obligation and political maneuver."[11] Mauss defines the gift
as creating a special bond between the giver and the receiver.[12] According to Mauss, the giver never
really leaves the gift but becomes part of the receiver's future by inserting the gift into their life. A gift
leads at some point to another gift in response, which creates a special reciprocal bond between
people.[13]

History
Material culture studies as an academic field grew along the field of anthropology and so began by
studying non-Western material culture. All too often, it was a way of putting material culture into
categories in such a way that marginalized and hierarchized the cultures from which they came.[14]
During the "golden age" of museum-going, material cultures were used to show the supposed evolution
of society from the simple objects of non-Westerners to the advanced objects of Europeans. It was a way
of showing that Europeans were at the end of the evolution of society, with non-Westerners at the
beginning. Eventually, scholars left the notion that culture evolved though predictable cycles, and the
study of material culture changed to have a more objective view of non-Western material culture.

The field of material culture studies as its own distinct discipline dates to the 1990s. The Journal of
Material Culture began publishing in 1996.[15] Collecting habits date back hundreds of years.

Contributors
Leslie White was an American anthropologist, known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution,
sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism and for his role in creating the department of
anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He was president of the American
Anthropological Association (1964). He wrote The Science of Culture in 1949 in which he outlined
schema of the world as divided into cultural, biological, and physical levels of phenomenon. White

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believed that the development of culture rested primarily

on technology and that the history of human technology
could be understood through the study of human-
produced materials.[16]

American anthropologist James Deetz, known for his

work in the field of historical archaeology, wrote the book
"In Small Things Forgotten" in 1977 and published a
revised and expanded version in 1996. He pioneered
there the ideas of using neglected substances such as
trash pits, potshards, and soil stains to reveal human
actions. By analyzing objects in association with their
location, the history of that location, the objects they
were found with, and not singling out the most valuable
or rarest ones, archaeologists can create a more accurate
picture of daily life. Deetz looks at the long view of
history and investigates the impact of European culture
on other cultures across the globe by an analysis of the
spread of everyday objects.
Finding tools of the past is considered a way to
Ian M. G. Quimby's Material Culture and the Study of discover the level of development of a culture
American Life, written in 1978, tried to bridge the gaps
between the museum world and the university and
between curator and historian. Quimby posits that objects in museums are understood through an
intellectual framework that uses non-traditional sources. He also describes the benefits of work on
exhibit design as a vehicle for education.

Thomas Schlereth, Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, wrote about
philosophies and methods of teaching history outside the traditional classroom. In his book Artifacts
and the American Past, Schlereth defines material culture study as an attempt to explain why things
were made, why they took the forms they did, and what social, functional, aesthetic, or symbolic needs
they serve. He advocates studying photographs, catalogues, maps and landscapes. He suggests a variety
of modes for interrogating artifacts.

Professor Kiki Smith of Smith College, asserts that “…clothes can reveal much about lives from the past,”
and that garments preserved in collections are akin to other artifacts, including books, diaries, paintings
and letters. She established the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection with 3000 items for the
college's theater department.[17] This archive of women’s clothings and accessories, from all social
classes, is a resource for courses in costume design, history, material culture, and literary history and
curatorial practices.[18]

Gerd Koch, associated with the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, is known for his studies on the material
culture of Tuvalu,[19] Kiribati[20] and the Santa Cruz Islands.[21] During his early field work in 1951 to
1952, Koch developed techniques in the recording of culture, including the use of tape recorders and
cinematographic cameras.[22][23]

Archaeology
Archaeology is the study of humanity through the inferential analysis of material culture to ultimately
gain an understanding of the daily lives of past cultures and the overarching trend of human history.[24]
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of the artifacts from a specific time and place, most
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often that has no written record. These physical artifacts are then used to
make inferences about the ephemeral aspects of culture and history.[25][26]
With more recent societies, written histories, oral traditions, and direct
observations may also be available to supplement the study of material
culture.

Beginning in the European Renaissance and the culture's fascination with

classical antiquities,[27] the study of artifacts from long-lost cultures has
produced many forms of archaeological theory, such as trans-cultural
diffusion, processual archaeology, and post-processual archaeology.
Additionally, archaeological sub-disciplines have emerged within the field,
including prehistoric archaeology, classical archaeology, historical
archaeology, cognitive archaeology, and cultural ecology. Recently, a scientific
methodology and approach to the analysis of pre-historic material culture has An archaeologist
searches for evidence of
become prevalent with systematic excavation techniques producing detailed
glass objects among
and precise results.[28]
ruins

Anthropology
Anthropology is most simply defined as the study of humans across time and
space.[29] In studying a human culture, an anthropologist studies the material
culture of the people in question as well as the people themselves and their
interactions with others. To understand the culture in which an object is
featured, an anthropologist looks at the object itself, its context, and the way
that it was manufactured and used.

The first anthropologist interested in studying material culture was Lewis

Henry Morgan, in the mid-19th century. He is most known for his research on
kinship and social structures, but he also studied the effect of material culture,
specifically technology, on the evolution of a society.[30] Later in the 19th
century, Franz Boas brought the fields of anthropology and material culture
studies closer together. He believed that it was crucial for an anthropologist to
analyze not only the physical properties of material culture but also its
meanings and uses in its indigenous context to begin to understand a
society.[31][32] At the same time in France, Émile Durkheim wrote about the
importance of material culture in understanding a society. Durkheim saw
material culture as one of the social facts that functions as a coercive force to
Anthropology is the
maintain solidarity in a society.[33]
study of humans both
Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the 20th century, included the study of material past and present
culture in his work as an anthropologist because he believed that it could
reveal a deeper level of structure and meaning unattainable by typical
fieldwork. According to Lévi-Strauss, material culture can recall the mindset of a people, regardless of
intervening time or space.[34] Also in the 20th century, Mary Douglas thought that anthropology was
about studying the meaning of material culture to the people who experience it.[35] Marvin Harris, a
contemporary of Douglas, put forward the theory of cultural materialism and said that all aspects of
society have material causes.[36]

Sociology
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In archaeology, the idea that social relations are embodied in material is well
known and established, with extensive research on exchange, gift giving and
objects as part of social ceremonies and events. However, in contradiction to
archaeology, where scientists build on material remains of previous cultures,
sociology tends to overlook the importance of material in understanding
relationships and human social behavior.[9]

The social aspects in material culture include the social behavior around it: the
way that the material is used, shared, talked about, or made.[9] An object
cannot hold meaning in and of itself and so when one focuses on the social
aspects of material culture, it is critical to keep in mind that interpretations of
objects and of interactions with them are the ones to evoke importance and
meaning.[13]
Any object created to
suit humans can
Heritage industry represent a form of
material culture
Museums and other material culture repositories, by their very nature, are
often active participants in the heritage industry. Defined as "the business of
managing places that are important to an area's history and encouraging people to visit them," the
heritage industry relies heavily on material culture and objects to interpret cultural heritage. The
industry is fueled by a cycle of people visiting museums, historic sites, and collections to interact with
ideas or physical objects of the past. In turn, the institutions profit through monetary donations or
admission fees as well as the publicity that comes with word-of-mouth communications.

That relationship is controversial, as many believe that the heritage industry corrupts the meaning and
importance of cultural objects. Often, scholars in the humanities take a critical view of the heritage
industry, particularly heritage tourism, believing it to be a vulgar oversimplification and corruption of
historic fact and importance. Others believe that the relationship and the financial stability it brings is
often the element that allows curators, researchers, and directors to conserve material culture's legacy.

Current production
Some observers advocate intentionally altering the material cultures created by current civilizations. For
example, waste reduction advocates within environmentalism advocate teaching design approaches,
such as cradle-to-cradle design and appropriate technology. Anti-consumerism advocates encourage
consuming less (thus creating fewer artifacts), engaging in more do-it-yourself projects and self-
sufficiency (changing the quality of artifacts produced), and localism impacts the geographic distribution
and uniformity of artifacts.

See also
Anti-consumerism
Disposable
Museum anthropology
Museum folklore
Over-consumption
Planned obsolescence
Sustainable consumption

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Non-material culture

References
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Multilingualism. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. p. 25. ISBN 9783319911038.
2. Kieschnick, John (2003). The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0691096759.
3. Miller, Daniel (2010). Stuff. Polity Books.
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London: Routledge. p. 241. ISBN 978-0415267199.
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Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. xi–xii. ISBN 9781576076477.
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2010, pp. 436-439.
7. Kahneman, Daniel; Knetsch, Jack L.; Thaler, Richard H. (1991-01-01). "Anomalies: The Endowment
Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias". The Journal of Economic Perspectives. 5 (1): 193–206.
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8. Strahilevitz, Michal A.; Loewenstein, George (1998-12-01). "The Effect of Ownership History on the
Valuation of Objects". Journal of Consumer Research. 25 (3): 276–289. doi:10.1086/209539 (https://
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