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Ecofact vs Artifact - What's the difference?

ecofact | artifact |

As nouns the difference between ecofact and artifact

is that ecofact is a biological artifact not altered by humans, but which may be indicative of human occupation while artifact is an object made or shaped by human hand.

ecofact

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (achaeology) A biological artifact not altered by humans, but which may be indicative of human occupation.
  • * 1963 , Missouri Archaeological Society, Research Series, Issues 1–13 , page 57:
    • The fact that two periods of occupation are in evidence, both having similar ecofact and material remains, suggests that the occupation and the behavior carried on there are part of an established cycle of seasonally based behavior.
  • * 2009 , Nancy Marie White, Archaeology For Dummies'', part 1 ''Archaeology: Seeing Past People Today'', chapter 1 ''What Archaeology Is , page 12:
    • Ecofact''''' is a term archaeologists invented to classify natural objects used by humans without modification. Animal bones left for dinner or pollen from gathered plants are '''ecofacts'''. … Even phosphates or other chemicals in the soil are ' ecofacts showing that people threw their organic waste on the ground.

    Synonyms

    * (in archaeology) biofact

    artifact

    English

    Alternative forms

    * artefact

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An object made or shaped by human hand.
  • (archaeology) An object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.
    • The dig produced many Roman artifacts .
  • Something viewed as a product of human conception or agency rather than an inherent element.
  • * "The very act of looking at a naked model was an artifact of male supremacy" (Philip Weiss).
  • A structure or finding 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.
  • An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin.
  • (computing) A perceptible distortion that appears in a digital image, audio or video file as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm.
    • This JPEG image has been so highly compressed that it has too many unsightly compression artifacts , making it unsuitable for the cover of our magazine.

    References

    * * "artefact" is the preferred spelling in Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary'', with ''artifact listed as a variant. * "artifact" is preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary and most American dictionaries.