LTStraipsnyje aptariama XVI–XVIII a. materialinės kultūros tyrimų raida Vakarų Europoje ir JAV XX a. antroje pusėje – XXI a. Išskiriami būdingiausi šios tematikos istoriografijos raidos etapai, reikšmingesnės diskusijos. Dėmesio skiriama ir materialinės kultūros tyrimams Lietuvoje, nes iki šiol ši tematika nesulaukia didesnio istorikų dėmesio, nors archeologai ir muziejininkai sėkmingai dirba šioje srityje. Raktiniai žodžiai: istoriografija, materialinė kultūra, daiktų istorija, „naujasis materializmas“.
ENAttention to material culture has had a significant impact on historical scholarship, and for several decades researchers have been eager to delve into this field that for a long time was approached sceptically. Since material culture studies are still quite rare in the works of Lithuanian historians, the article aims to review the stronger pronounced trends in material culture research in Western Europe and the USA and to actualise the need for such works in Lithuanian historiography. The article focuses on the methodologies of material culture research and the new concepts that have emerged in recent decades. The author adheres to the classical definition of material culture: it is the objects created or modified, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly by human beings that reflect the patterns of thought of the individuals who produced, commissioned, acquired, or used these things and of the society to which these individuals belong. Albeit in a rather conditional way, the article identifies the more significant phases of material culture research. For a long time, objects were out of the focus of historians’ attention, as priority was given to studies on social phenomena, structures, and institutions. A more consistent effort to develop broader approaches to the study of material culture was observed in the late 1960s, when scholars increasingly sought to understand the history of ‘silent’ social groups that did not necessarily leave significant written documents. A couple of decades later, the interest in the so-called ‘consumer revolution’ of the eighteenth century and the social meanings conveyed by artefacts gave a new impetus for the study of material culture. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, new theoretical approaches have been increasingly sought, of which ‘new materialism’ has attracted much attention (as well as criticism).In discussing the research into material culture in Lithuanian historiography, the author notes that the works of historians of the Soviet period reflected little or no discussion of Western European and American scholars of the time, and it was only archaeologists who paid more attention to artefacts. In recent years, attention to material culture in Lithuania has been increasing, but artefacts still remain the focus of museums and archaeologists. Historians discuss them only on the basis of written sources. Keywords: historiography, material culture, history of things, ‘new materialism’.