An artefact is a thing people made, not a stone or bone that nature left alone — a tool, a pot, a weapon, a coin — and we keep it because it tells us about life in the past. Museums are full of them. That is the main meaning for learners, and it is the one you will meet in history class. British spelling is artefact; American spelling is artifact. Same word, same sound. Scientists and doctors stretch it: an artefact can also be a mark that looks like a result but was made by the machine or the method, not by the thing you meant to study. A strange line on a body scan, for example, may be “just an artefact”. In that second sense it is a warning: do not trust the picture too fast. The history sense feels neutral and a little formal; the science sense is specialist talk. Neither sense means “a piece of art”, even though the letters look that way.