If you read the "About Me" blurb in this blog, you will see that I claim to still be in possession of 2 of the 3 artifacts that I departed home with on my way to college: the boyfriend (now husband) and the canning kettle. Technically, the husband does not qualify as an artifact. (I know this, since I minored in Anthropology.)
An artifact is something that is impacted by man, a signature of his presence on the scene. Aside from acknowledging the role of my in-laws in his conception, I can hardly claim my husband as an artifact.
On the other hand. . . he is the world's chief artifact curator of farmer's junk. If it was used once, it can be used again: field fencing, screws, pieces of wood, cardboard, scrap lumber, and way too many coffee cans. So, he is preserving American culture.
If a catastrophic volcano (think Pompeii--wow, we aren't too far from Mt. St. Helens) wipes us all out, our property will be preserved for posterity and graduate anthropology students. They will dig through the remains of our property 200 years from now--they will see the work of Mr. Artifact. I'm sure they will wonder why these earlier people had so many coffee cans.
