An artifact is any object that has been made, used, or altered by people and has made its way into the ground through discard, loss, or disaster. Most artifacts are simply someone s garbage, and garbage is not very glamorous. There are some drawbacks to using the archaeological record for information. Not everything archaeologists want to know about people is answered by their trash. For example, it is tricky to determine ethnicity through archaeology.
Preservation is another problem.
Not everything that is thrown away is preserved in the ground. Paper and cloth decompose quickly, as do leather and many organic materials that are preserved only when submerged in water at the bottom of an abandoned well or in a privy pit. But for the most part, what people throw away is extraordinarily informative. The skill is in learning to make the garbage talk, to make it tell things about the past. During the last twenty years, some archaeologists have begun to study ecofacts, which are things not made by people.