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In archaeology, an artifact or artefact is any object made by a human culture, and often one later recovered by some archaeological endeavor. Common examples include stone tools such as projectile points, pottery vessels such as amphorae, metal objects such as buttons or guns and items of personal adornment such as jewellery and clothing.

The study of these objects is an important part of the field of archaeology, although the degree to which they represent the social groupings that created them is a subject over which archaeological theoreticians argue. Focusing on the artifact alone can produce very intensive and enlightening work on the object itself but can ignore surrounding factors which may shed further light on the manufacturing society. Traditional museums are often criticised for being too artifact-led, that is by displaying items without any contextual information about their purpose or the people who made them.

Artifacts can come from a number of sources:

• Buried along with a body. (see: grave goods)
• From a midden or other domestic setting
• Hoards
• Votive offerings

Artifacts are distinguished from featureIn archaeology, the term feature is generally used to refer to any nonportable remnant of human activity, such as a hearth, road, or house remains, later found or recovered by some archaeological endeavor. Prehistoric features may include hearths, some tys, which are nonportable remains of human activity, such as hearthIn common historic and modern usage, a hearth is a brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven used for cooking and/or heating. Because of its nature, in historic times the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most importants, roadThis page is related to transport you may be looking for the 2002 Bollywood movie Road''. A road is a strip of land, smoothed or otherwise prepared to allow easier travel, connecting two or more destinations. In the context of railways, a road is a singles, or houseSt Albans, England For other meanings of the word House see House (disambiguation . A house in its most general sense is a human-built dwelling with enclosing walls and a roof. It provides shelter against precipitation, wind, heat, cold and intruding huma remains, and from biofactIn archaeology, a biofact or ecofact is an object, found at an archaeological site and carrying archaeological significance, but (unlike an artifact) not altered by human hands. A common type of biofact is a plant seed. A seed can be linked to the speciess (also called ecofacts), which are objects of archaeological interest made by other organisms, such as seedThis writeup is about biological seeds; for the Buddhist metaphor, see bija. A seed is the ripened ovule of gymnosperm or angiosperm plants. The importance of the seed relative to more primitive forms of reproduction and dispersal is attested to by the sus or animalSubkingdom Parazoa Porifera (sponges) Subkingdom " Agnotozoa" Placozoa Orthonectida Rhombozoa Subkingdom Metazoa "Radiata" Cnidaria Ctenophora (comb jellies) Bilateria Protostomia Acoelomorpha Platyhelminthes (flatworms) Nemertina (ribbon worms) Gastrotri bone.

Natural objects which have been moved but not changed by humans are called manuports. Examples would include seashells moved inland or rounded pebbles placed away from the water action that would have fashioned them.

These distinctions are often blurred; for instance, a bone removed from an animal carcass is a biofact, but a bone carved into a useful implement is an artifact. Similarly there can be debate over early stone objects which may be crude artefacts or which may be naturally occurring phenomena that only appear to have been used by humans.