If average American homes were examined like newly discovered outposts of an exotic foreign culture, what might scientists learn?

The Center on Everyday Lives of Families at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently released a study on the home lives of 32 middle-class, dual-income families in L.A. For four years, a team of archeologists, anthropologists and other scientists observed these families and their "material culture"—that is, how they related to all of their...