page_title: Artifact (archaeology)
section_title: Context
hierarchical_section_title: Artifact (archaeology) / Context
caption_attribution_description: English: The so called Curmsun Disc with Latin inscription
context_page_description: An artifact, or artefact, is something made or given shape by humans, such as a tool or a work of art, especially an object of archaeological interest. In archaeology, the word has become a term of particular nuance and is defined as an object recovered by archaeological endeavor, which may be a cultural artifact having cultural interest. Modern archaeologists take care to distinguish material culture from ethnicity, which is often more complex, as expressed by Carol Kramer in the dictum "pots are not people."
  Artifacts exist in many different forms and can sometimes be confused with ecofacts and features; all three of these can sometimes be found together at archaeological sites. They can also exist in different types of context depending on the processes that have acted on them over time. A wide variety of analyses take place to analyze artifacts and provide information on them. However, the process of analyzing artifacts through scientific archaeology can be hindered by the looting and collecting of artifacts, which sparks ethical debate.
context_section_description: Artifacts can come from any archaeological context or source such as:
  Buried along with a body
  From any feature such as a midden or other domestic setting
  Votive offerings
  Hoards, such as in wells
  Examples include stone tools, pottery vessels, metal objects such as weapons and items of personal adornment such as buttons, jewelry and clothing. Bones that show signs of human modification are also examples. Natural objects, such as fire cracked rocks from a hearth or plant material used for food, are classified by archaeologists as ecofacts rather than as artifacts.
  Artifacts exist as a result of behavioral and transformational processes. A behavioral process involves acquiring raw materials, manufacturing these for a specific purpose and then discarding after use. Transformational processes begin at the end of behavioral processes; this is when the artifact is changed by nature and/or humans after is has been deposited. Both of these processes are significant factors in evaluating the context of an artifact.
  The context of an artifact can be broken into two categories: primary context and secondary context. Before defining these categories, it must be noted that a matrix is a physical setting that an artifact exists in, and a provenience refers to a specific location within a matrix. When an artifact is found in the realm of primary context, the matrix and provenience have not been changed by transformational processes. However, the matrix and provenience are changed by transformational processes when referring to secondary context. Artifacts exist in both contexts, and this is taken into account during the analysis of them.
  Artifacts are distinguished from stratigraphic features and ecofacts. Stratigraphic features are non-portable remains of human activity that include hearths, roads, deposits, trenches and similar remains. Ecofacts, also referred to as biofacts, are objects of archaeological interest made by other organisms, such as seeds or animal bone. 
  Natural objects that humans have moved but not changed are called manuports. Examples include seashells moved inland or rounded pebbles placed away from the water action that made them.
  These distinctions are often blurred; 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 that could be either crude artifacts or naturally occurring and happen to resemble early objects made by early humans or Homo sapiens. It can be difficult to distinguish the differences between actual man-made lithic artifacts and geofacts – naturally occurring lithics  that resemble man-made tools. It is possible to authenticate artifacts by examining the general characteristics attributed to man-made tools and local characteristics of the site.
  Artifacts, features and ecofacts can all be located together at sites. Sites may include different arrangements of the three; some might include all of them while others might only include one or two. Sights can have clear boundaries in the form of walls and moats, but this is not always the case. Sites can be distinguished through categories, such as location and past functions. How artifacts exist at these sites can provide archaeological insight. An example of this would be utilizing the position and depth of buried artifacts to determine a chronological timeline for past occurrences at the site. 
  In ethnography and archaeology, a category of "ancestral artifact" has been proposed, defined as, "any object of natural raw material (chert, obsidian, wood, bone, native copper, and so on) made by a people following a lifestyle based on foraging (e.g. hunting, gathering) and/or basic agriculture or pastoralism (e.g. horticulture, transhumance)".
caption: Curmsun Disc - Obverse, Jomsborg, 980s, Burial site of king Harald Bluetooth
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