Arti facts

Volume 27, No. 2 Idaho Archaeological Society, Inc. September 2010

ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN REVIEW

Arrivals and Departures

This month we take time to honor an internationally- known flintknapper Gene Titmus that was also a gentleman and a friend to many in Idaho. The editor would like to thank James Woods, Dan Meatte, Suzann Henrikson, and Lisa Cresswell for their contributions about Gene.

Gene L. Titmus, A Legendary Figure in Idaho Archaeology

By James C. Woods

College of Southern Idaho

Gene Titmus, of Jerome, Idaho, passed away in May 2010. For those of us who knew him, this was a shocking and unanticipated loss. Aside from his long struggle with his hearing, Gene remained very active, even being one of few who made a grueling 40-mile walk through the rainforest of northern Guatemala when he was over retirement age. Gene was a long-time member of the Idaho Archaeological Society, having served as state President as well as President of the Snake River Chapter of the IAS in Magic Valley. Gene was also a long-time Research Associate at the Herrett Center for Arts and Science, and contributed many hours and replicas to helping with research, presentations, and exhibits. Attendees to the IAS conferences each year looked forward to being able to bid on Gene’s replicas or a chance to win one of the Titmus door prizes with all proceeds going to the society.

Gene’s professional career was with Idaho Power where he first worked at Shoshone Falls and Swan Falls power plants, then eventually as the Metering Supervisor for south-central Idaho. In his private time, he was passionately involved with the study of ancient stone tools and weapons. His first experiences with archaeology came from growing up in the Snake River canyon around many prehistoric sites.

He ultimately began to experiment with flintknapping and he developed his own unique pressure-flaking technique now generally known as "Titmus flaking". He met Don Crabtree around 1958 and Page 2 Artifacts Vol. 27, No. 2

asked Don to teach him some new skills. Crabtree astutely observed that Gene had abilities that he could not match, so Don encouraged Gene to just keep working as he had done. Eventually, the two

became best of friends, and it was a common site to see Gene’s Idaho Power truck parked at the Crabtree home during the noon hour. Crabtree passed away in 1980, and Gene inherited the reputation as one of the nation’s premiere stone tool knappers.

In 1999, Gene was awarded the Don E. Crabtree Award by the Society for American Archaeology. This was especially fitting because Gene helped Don with much of the experimental work in Crabtree’s famous paper "A Stoneworker's Approach to Analyzing and Replicating the Lindenmeier Folsom" in 1966. In his later years, Gene expanded upon his earlier experiments in Folsom technology, presented papers at the Texas Folsom workshops, co-authored technical papers on fluting technology, and conducted numerous experiments to study the variables involved with this complex technology. Recently, a substantial collection of Titmus fluted point replicas was donated to the Herrett Center, by his wife, Wilma. Surely, there is not a single contemporary person who has made and/or attempted more Folsom points than Gene.

Gene’s scholarly work went well beyond Folsom technology. He volunteered many hours working as a site steward for the BLM, and could be found in his small pickup bouncing across south-central Idaho desert roads. He did volunteer work at several excavations including Kwahadu Rockshelter, Kelvin’s Cave, the Kueney Site, the Buhl Burial, and many more. Gene also donated several years to the RAINPEG Project in northern Guatemala. He made numerous treks along what has become known as the "Nakbe Death March", a grueling two-day hike through the Peten rainforest to this famous Preclassic Maya site. While there, Gene assisted in the study of ancient Maya limestone quarries and contributed new information regarding the energetics of pyramid construction.

Gene also spent many hours at home experimenting with Maya eccentrics, publishing a paper that described the requisite manufacturing sequence and labor investment to shape the larger anthropocentric forms seen in many museums. A careful scrutiny of Gene’s contributions shows that he was not content with basic description. He had an ability to analyze stone tool reduction sequences and could reconstruct the oftentimes complex steps needed to produce ancient tools and weapons.

Visitors to their Jerome home would be met by Gene and his wife, Wilma, and a cold glass of tea or soda. Looming nearby were massive piles of obsidian collected over a lifetime. Just behind the obsidian piles was a huge flaking debris pile consisting of material from Gene’s many years of experimenting. Friends and colleagues would often send him samples of fine lithic materials from other world sources and his pile reflected the full range of his network of colleagues. Gene and Wilma were also avid gardeners, and the large piles of stone were generally hidden by a thick cover of exotic flowering plants.

In his later years, Gene’s hearing was such that he was not comfortable around groups of people. He preferred a nice afternoon on his raised deck, watching the hummingbirds and talking about his favorite stone tool subjects. He avoided conferences and meetings due to his hearing loss. He often lamented the fact that he could not attend meetings and visit with his many friends. Older colleagues as well as young students who did visit his home found him to be exceedingly kind with his time, quick to laugh, and a keen listener and observer.

Many indigenous peoples feel it is not polite to talk of departed friends. However, to the many students of anthropology and others who will only know Gene through his work, a few stories about him from friends and colleagues can reveal more about the character of this man. So, it is with great Page 3 Artifacts Vol. 27, No. 2

respect I share two personal accounts. Upon takeoff from an unimproved runway in northern Guatemala, we hit a large bump and the side door of the Cessna flew open right next to me. Gene, who was sitting next to me, casually reached over and grabbed the back of my shirt and held on like an iron vise for the next 30-minutes until we landed at the next airport. I appreciated the strength in his hands from a lifetime of pressure-flaking!

Once at Glass Buttes, Gene became very ill and could not stand up or help quarry stone. He became temporarily confined to his camp chair. Dan Meatte and I happened to quarry a very large cobble of obsidian, too large to load into Gene’s pickup. Gene, refusing to abandon the stone, used a laser pointer to indicate the exact spot where we were to hit it with his special hammerstone. It was a marvelous experience for Dan and I, knapping by laser light guided by the trained eye of one of the world’s best stone knappers. The irony of that moment was not lost to Gene who would later ask me upon occasion if he needed to get his laser when I was struggling with some knapping problem.

If, as many foraging peoples believe, the essence of a man lives on in the things he makes with his hands, then Gene’s spirit will endure for a very long time to come.

Remembering Gene

by

Lisa Cresswell, BLM Shoshone District

 

I first met Gene Titmus around 2001 when he came to the Shoshone BLM office to volunteer as an archaeological site monitor. Gene and I had a standing date on Wednesdays to monitor sites for several years. Each spring, he would be chomping at the bit to hit the field and when winter finally came, you could tell he was sorry to see summer go. He loved to explore and find new sites whenever we went out. He truly was a desert rat. He grew up at Shoshone Falls, scrambling around the rocks of the Snake River Canyon, looking for archaeological sites. I think that experience instilled in him a real, lasting love for the desert and for archaeology.

There are several sites in the Shoshone Field office named by Gene and at least two named after him – Gene’s Gigantic Site and the Drifting Gene. One day while we were out monitoring sites in the Bennett Hills, Gene spied a green patch in the distance and said "I bet there’s a site there." Sure enough, Gene’s green spot turned out to be a gigantic lithic scatter spanning several thousand meters of drainage with rock shelters and rock art. At the Drifting Gene site, we lost him in a series of dunes in Craters of the Moon National Monument. We spent several frantic minutes trying to relocate him. As usual, he was off on his own adventure, looking for sites and having a good time.

Whenever we saw a dust devil in the open desert, Gene would smile and say it was a Shoshoni ghost. He always brought pretty much the same lunch – a ham sandwich and Fritos – which he would happily share. He said Fritos were "required field-food". If we were lucky, he would have some of Wilma’s cookies too. We talked about a lot of things in the desert, about family and friendships, about places we’d been or people we’d met, and about things life taught us both funny and sad. But mostly we talked about archaeology because that was what Gene was all about. Now, whenever I see a Shoshoni ghost in the desert, I will remember Gene and his generous spirit, wandering the desert he loved.  

Gene

By

Suzann Henrikson, BLM Burley District

Gene Titmus, more than anyone I've ever known, had the keenest "nose" for buried features. Between 2000 and 2005, he volunteered hundreds of hours to the University of Oregon Archaeological Field School, mentoring students (and me) during our adventures on the eastern Snake River Plain. He was frank, honest, and shared his tremendous knowledge in a gracious and humble manner. The students adored him. While excavating at Bison Heights in 2001, Gene grabbed me and pointed to a sandy spot against a nondescript basalt outcrop (amid a dozen other nondescript outcrops) and said, "Dig here...you’ll find a hearth." He was right. In fact, it was a beautiful rock-lined feature swimming in sagebrush charcoal with a schist grinding slab on the bottom. It was the only hearth we found that summer. If it hadn’t been Gene who pointed to the feature, I might have passed it off as a lucky guess. He did it again at Calf Creek a few years later. The basalt cliff along the south side of the creek is hundreds of meters long, with lots of overhangs, nooks and crannies. Despite having eye surgery just a few months prior, Gene was not going to miss the opportunity to excavate a site in the Bennett Hills. Within minutes of arriving, he pointed to a specific spot, flush against the cliff, and said, "There’s a hearth here." Needless to say, there was. A big one—rocked-lined and totally sexy. Although Gene’s "nose" for features will forever fascinate me, it was just icing on the cake. I will cherish all my memories of Gene, his kind heart, generous nature, and unrelenting passion for Idaho prehistory.