Fossils

• Fossils include the remains of dead animals and plants or the imprint left by their bodies in the rocks. In fossilized remains, the original living tissue has been replaced by minerals leaching in over the millennia.
  
  

Artifacts

• Artifacts are made by humans. Typical artifacts found by archeologists include coins, weapons, gems, sculptures and vases.
  
  

Legal Differences

• Because many artifacts found in America were made by the ancestors of present-day Native Americans, there are more restrictions on collecting or selling them than on fossils. Some fossils may be collected on federal land, for instance, but not artifacts.
  
  

Differences in Age

• Archeological artifacts can be found dating back many thousand years. The earliest fossils date back almost four billion years.
  
  

Differences in Analysis

• Artifacts are analyzed by comparing them to the style and make of similar objects or situating them in the known history of the area in which they were found. Because fossils are so much older, there are other tools for studying them, such as the kind of rock formation in which they were found.