Question

List of five material culture items concepts from the United States

List five nonmaterial culture concepts from the United States

Answer 1

Material culture consists of any physical manifestation or product of culture or refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture. For example, technology is a vital aspect of material culture in today's United States. A school building belongs to material culture.

Metro passes and bus tokens are part of material culture, as are automobiles, stores, and the physical structures where people worship.

One common form of material culture is jewelry that indicates a person’s status as married. In American culture, people wear a metal band on the ring finger of the left hand to show that they are married.

Automobile ownership clearly illustrates the American value of material acquisition. Americans love cars, and society is constructed to accommodate them.

Another example is the art historian Thompson finds echoes of this Ki-Kongo tradition in the seashells and mugs with broken-out bottoms found on some African American graves in the southeastern United States.

American anthropologist Jamse 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.

Non‐material culture refers to the nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture, including beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, language, organizations, and institutions. Capitalism and the acceptance of paying for transportation are examples of non-material culture.

In the United States today, many women value thinness as a standard of beauty. In Ghana, however, most people would consider American fashion models sickly and undesirable. In that culture and others, robustness is valued over skinniness as a marker of beauty.

Another example is Americans believe in freedom of speech, and they believe they should be able to say whatever they want without fear of reprisal from the government.

In the United States, for example, if we nod our head up and down, we mean yes, and if we shake it back and forth, we mean no.

Some of our most important symbols are objects. Here the U.S. flag is a prime example. For most Americans, the flag is not just a piece of cloth with red and white stripes and white stars against a field of blue. Instead, it is a symbol of freedom, democracy, and other American values and, accordingly, inspires pride and patriotism.