artifact vs item

artifact

noun
  • An object made or shaped by human hand or labor. 

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

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

  • Any object in the collection of a museum. May be used sensu stricto only for human-made objects, or may include ones that are not human-made. 

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

  • 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. 

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

  • 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. 

item

noun
  • A distinct physical object. 

  • A question on a test, which may include its answers. 

  • Two people who are having a romantic or sexual relationship with each other. 

  • A line of text having a legal or other meaning; a separate particular in an account. 

  • An object that can be picked up for later use. 

  • A short article in a newspaper. 

  • A matter for discussion in an agenda. 

adv
  • likewise 

verb
  • To make a note of. 

How often have the words artifact and item occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )