Recently, curators at museums have experienced problems with the preservation of plastic objects, almost all of which disintegrate over time. The Smithsonian collection contains the first-ever plastic toothbrush, which soon will be nothing more than a pile of crumbs. This problem is leading many historians to worry that we will lose the history of our:

Question

Ralph Brown

Social Studies

19 February, 18:38

Recently, curators at museums have experienced problems with the preservation of plastic objects, almost all of which disintegrate over time. The Smithsonian collection contains the first-ever plastic toothbrush, which soon will be nothing more than a pile of crumbs. This problem is leading many historians to worry that we will lose the history of our:

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Braiden Brewer · Answer 1

Material culture

Explanation:

Material culture refers to the physical pieces that make up a culture, in other words, it refers to things that have been created by humans.

By studying the physical objects of a culture we gain a better understanding of the lives of the people who interacted with those objects. Material culture is our way to get insight into the nonmaterial culture (which refers to ideas, values and beliefs of a culture).

The Smithsonian collection contains the first-ever plastic toothbrush, which soon will be nothing more than a pile of crumbs. Other museums have experienced problems with preservation of plastic objects, which are disintegrating over time.

These objects are examples of material culture since they are physical pieces that make up our culture and that were created by humans.

Thus by losing these objects we would be losing the story of our material culture.