An artifact or artefact (see also spelling differences) is:
A human-made object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, especially those of archaeological or historical interest.
A human-made object that is a prototype or standard of measurement.
A structure or feature, visible only as a result of external action or experimental error. Also known as disturbance in biopotential signals.
Artefact is a fulltext information retrieval system capable of searching through databases containing documents written in a natural language
Artifact may also refer to:
Artifact , any object made or modified by a human culture, and later recovered by an archaeological endeavor
Artifact, an online multiplayer video game
Artifact , in the fantasy genre, is usually a magical object so powerful that it cannot be duplicated or destroyed by ordinary means
Artifact , misrepresentations of tissue structures seen in medical images
Artifact , any perceived distortion or other data error caused by the instrum
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifact