noun

1. An object made or shaped by human hand or labor.

2. An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin.

3. Something viewed as a product of human agency or conception rather than an inherent element.

4. A finding or structure in an experiment or investigation that is not a true feature of the object under observation, but is a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error.

   "The spot on his lung turned out to be an artifact of the X-ray process."

5. An object, such as a tool, ornament, or weapon of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.

   "The dig produced many Roman artifacts."

6. An appearance or structure in protoplasm due to death, the method of preparation of specimens, or the use of reagents, and not present during life.

7. A perceptible distortion that appears in an audio or video file or a digital image as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm.

   "This JPEG image has been so highly compressed that it has unsightly compression artifacts, making it unsuitable for the cover of our magazine."