Artefactanalyse

Artefactanalyse, or artifact analysis, is a systematic examination of artifacts to understand their origin, function, manufacture, and context. In archaeology and cultural heritage, artefactanalyse focuses on material remains such as tools, pottery, metals, and artworks. It uses methods like typology and seriation to place finds in time and culture, wear-pattern analysis to infer use, residue analysis to detect contents, and materials analysis (for example X-ray fluorescence, SEM-EDS) to determine composition. The aim is to reconstruct technology, trade networks, daily life, and social organization while recording provenance and stratigraphic context for reproducibility.

In digital forensics and data science, artefactanalyse refers to examining data artifacts—log files, recovered fragments, metadata, or imaging artifacts—to reconstruct events, user behavior, or the validity of measurements. In imaging and signal processing, artefactanalyse distinguishes genuine signal from imaging artifacts and guides artifact reduction or correction.

The practice shares core steps: systematic documentation, careful sampling, and transparent interpretation within contextual knowledge. Analysts combine domain-specific techniques with cross-disciplinary collaboration to ensure results are robust and reproducible. Limitations include interpretive bias, preservation or data biases, and the risk of misattributing function or origin without corroborating evidence.

Overall, artefactanalyse is a multidisciplinary approach to interpreting artifacts as evidence of past or present processes, technologies, and activities, with methods tailored to the artifact type and research questions.