At the first mention of a bikeshed the quibbler rises from the long grass.
The 1933 Supplement of OED1 has the following:
*Artefac.* = next.
1906 CHAMBERLIN & SALISBURY /Geol./ III. 502 Following European
precedents, the earlier students classed the rougher artefacs as
paleolithic... The better-fashioned artefacs were classed as neolithic
1911 Encycl. Brit. XXI. 836/1 The difficulty of employing /artefacs/
of stone as chronological indicators.
*Artefact* (Ä·ɹt/Ä/fækt), sb. and a. Also *arti-* [f. L. /arte/, abl.
of /ars/ art + /factum/, neut. pa. ppl. of /facere/ to make. (Cf. Sp.,
Pg. /artefacto/, It. /artefatto/, adj. and sb. )] *A.* sb. Anything
made by human art and workmanship ; an artificial product. In
/Archaeol./ applied to the rude products of aboriginal art as
distinguished from natural remains.
1821 COLERIDGE in /Blackw. Mag./ X 256 The conception of all these, as
realised in one and the same artéfact, may be fairly entitled, the
Ideal of an Ink-stand. /a/ 1834 - Lit. Rem. (1838) III. 347 A lump of
sugar of lead lies among other artefacts on the shelf of a collector.
1890 D. G. BRINTON /Races & Peoples/ ii. 75 /note/, This is shown ..
by the presence of artefacts and shells from the Pacific in old graves
on the Atlantic coast. 1922 /Class. Quarterly/ XVI. 24 The shadows
appear to be real till their originals are exposed as the paltry
artefacts they are. 1925 /Times Lit. Suppl/ 13 Aug. 529/1 The
distribution of artifacts. 1927 G. MURRAY /Class. Tradition/ 243
Poetry..is an 'artifact'.—I mean, it is a thing made.
 *B* /adj./ Made by human art and workmanship. /rare/.
1909 J. A. STEWART /Plato's Doctr. Ideas/ The rêverie-image of an
object natural or artifact.
[...]
*Artifact* : see * ARTEFACT.
while the original OED1 entry is:
*Artifact* (Ä·ɹtifækt). /rare/. Also *arte-* [f. L. /arti-/ art + /factus/, pa. pple. of /facÄ•re/ to make.] A thing made by art, an artificial product.
/a/ 1834 COLERIDGE /Lit. Rem./ III. 347. A lump of sugar of lead lies
among other artefacts on the shelf of a collector. 1884 G. S. HALL
/Diestemey's Teaching Hist./ 8 School artifacts, mistaken for
perplexities inherent in the subject itself.
'Art', 'artifice', 'artificer', and 'artificial' all have much earlier
first examples, and none are marked as rare in the original listing.
Probably archaeology was responsible for making 'artifact' common in
English. However the Hall example seems to show that the more
metaphorical (and derogatory) use of the word in, for example,
'compression artifacts' has precedents going back to 1884.
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