COLE HURST, MEGA BLADE MAKER By Ray Harwood
"As of late many knappers are creating ever larger
pieces of lithic art in the form of huge bifaces.
Emery Coons reportedly percussion bifaced a 50 inch
preform and managed a 40 inch finished neofact. I
wrote the Coon's family and requested information and
a photo by received no response.
At the California knap in this year, large the key
word.
Many from other states, such as Coons in Oregon, are
also thinking large and obsidian suppliers are selling
more mega slabs than ever.
Named the Orcutt syndrome after an old time knapper
named Ted Orcutt, whom was known for his massive
biface work. More later..." Ray Harwood Aug. 30. 2000
MEGA BLADE KNAPPING WITH COLE HURST
By Ray Harwood
PHASE ONE OF COLE'S MEGA BLADE:
PHASE TWO OF COLE'S MEGA BLADE:
PHASE 3 OF COLE'S MEGA BLADE
THESE PHOTOS OF COLE KNAPPING SHOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING THE BIFACE DURING THE CAREFUL PRECISSION KNAPPING PROCESS. The slightest mistake can lead to disaster, in that a lot of time and effort on a very rare piece of stone is gone in a fraction of a second....stone is a very unforgiving medium to work with.
TED ORCUTT UNDOUBTEDLY KNAPPED WITH THE SAME PROCESSES.
.
COLE HURST: MEGA BLADE KANPPER
Many have heard of the large biface knapper of the last century, Ted Orcutt,. Many don’t know that there is an every growing number of modern flintknappers that are following in Orcutt’s foot steps. I plan to showcase as many of these new obsidian biface masters as I can. Here is the first mega blade knapper, Cole Hurst.
Cole Hurst was born October 14th 1960 in Fort Madison, Iowa and within a few years his family moved to East Wenatchee, Washington where he still resides.
Growing up he found arrowheads, scrapers and fragments of stone artifacts which sparked his curiosity in how they were made. Cole started flintknapping in the mid 80's when he was in his mid 20's. Cole Hurst didn’t know what I was doing, just experimenting. It was in the late 80's that he got a copy of "The art of Flintknapping" by D.C. Waldorf. Then later he met D.C. in 1990 when he was there in East Wenatchee with the Buffallo Museum of Science to take part in one of the digs at the Richey Clovis site, which is only a few miles from where he lives. That is when Cole’s knapping really took off. He has made several trips to Glass Buttes to quarry Obsidian, also e has networked with other flintknappers to aquire stone from all over the United States and around the world. Cole bought a rocksaw to conserve on materials as well as a kiln for heat-alteration.
Cole has held the Wenatchee knap-in since 1995. Cole is a member of Knappers-R-Us since it's beginning in 2001 and has a page on www.Flintknappers.com/cole.htm . Cole has chipped different point types found across the U.S. Cole has played with many different styles of knapping. Danish, Egyptian, Mayan Eccentrics, paralell pressure and percussion flaking and Flake over Grinding. Through the 90's his main focus was the Wenatchee style Clovis points. Cole made many and tried several different fluting techniques with pressure jigs, today it is direct percussion fluting. In the mid to late 90's Cole wanted to make larger pieces and began making the large bi-faces, his first deer dance blades. Since that time, the large Clovis points and Ceremonial blades is about 80 percent of Cole’s knapping. He has made many up to 16 or 18" and the quest for even larger blades has lured him. Finding material large enough is a quest in itself. Just in the last few years have Cole found pieces up to and beyond 24". Currently Cole is working on a pair of blades that may exceed 28”
-“Some may think using slabs is kinda cheating. I don't. Much harder to get into with all the squared edges and fragility. Not to mention getting more than one centerpiece by spalling.”- Without slabs hundreds of pounds of obsidian would be wasted, when one boulder can produce one or two giant blade on a good day, if sawn with a diamond saw these precious large pieces can yield dozens of large to giant blades. These giant blades are indeed rare and precious. With many of the lithic sources being considered for National Park status, these quarries will be off limits forever, and the time of the giant blades will end, and their value increase many times over,
Who was Ted Orcutt?
Ted Orcutt, The Karok Master, King of the Flintknappers. at the he
turn of the last century there were many flintknappers working at
their craft. One of these knappers stands out among the rest as he
carried on a sacred tradition, the white deer knapper. The White Deer
knapper had the honor of knapping the massive obsidian blades for the
world renewal ceremony known as the White Deer Dance. The White Deer
Dance was very a huge undertaking and organizers spent years planning
for one event. The event was not only time and labor intensive but
was also financially very costly. To make things work out, each tribe
took a turn hosting the event that often lasted 3 solid days. The
actual dance involved dancers carrying stuffed albino dear skins on
polls followed by obsidian dancers that carried a set of two- twin,
massive obsidian bi-faced blades tied in the middle with a buck skin
thong. He who knapped the sacred, giant, ceremonial blades for the
Karok, Hupa and Yurok was a man of honor. The man who last held this
honor was known as king of the flintknappers, he was Theodore Orcutt.
Theodore Orcutt was born February 25, 1862 near the Karok Indian
settlement of Weitchpec on the Klamath River. Weitchpec is now at the
upper or north edge of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in
northern California. His mother was a full blooded Karok Indian, born
at the Karok settlement of Orleans, Oleans is only a short distance
from Weitchpec on Hwy 96, his father was a Scotsman. Theodore's
father, Albert Stumes Orcutt had fair skin, blue eyes and light hair
and was about 5.11 inches tall and ran Orcutt Hydraulic on the South
fork of the Salmon River at Methodist creek, Albert came to this area
from Maine where he was carpenter, although he had been a sailor
earlier in life. Later in life Albert had a small farm and Orchard on
the Klamath River.
Theodore's mother, Panamenik -Wapu Orcutt, was closer to 5 foot 6
inches , with jet black hair, brown eyes and dark skin. His mother
had the characteristic traditional female Karok tattoo on her chin, 3
vertical strait lines. At adolescence all traditional Karok girls had
their chin tattooed with three vertical lines, or stripes. Using a
sharp obsidian tool, soot and grease were stitched into the skin, the
same tattoo was on the biceps. The tattooing was for several purposes
all relating to gender and Klan affiliation. She was considered a
good cook and hard worker, she could make baskets, new the ins and
outs of herbalism and acted on occasion as a midwife. She also spoke
both the Hokan language and English. Theodore's mother stayed close
to him all his life and even in old age she made trips to visit with
him. His mother lived to the advance age of 107 years old.
In about 1865 young Theodore was given his Indian name, "Mus-su-peta-
nac" translated to English means "Up-River-Boy", Karok traditional
names were not given for several years after birth so if the child
died at a young age they would not be remembered by name and the
grieving would be less. The infant mortality rate for Karok in the
late 1800s was not good, at the Federal census of 1910 there were
only 775 Karoks living in 200 Karok homes.
As a child, Theodore road his pony to the local one room school house
and was a quite and good student. He was a quit boy and a very good
writer, had excellent penmanship and was well read, he was, however
largely self taught, because of his many other obligations. He helped
around the house and was diligent in his chores. While the country
was celebrating its first centennial, 1876, Ted was 14 years old and
had begun his flintknapping apprenticeship with his Karok uncle "Mus-
sey-pev-ue-fich" , his mother's brother, whom was a master
flintknapper and was considered the village specialist. It was a
great honor for Ted to be chosen to such a prestigious mentor (mentor-
a wise and trusted counselor) and he practiced when ever he could.
The raw material of choice for stone workers in northern California
at the time was obsidian. Obsidian is a volcanic, colored glass,
usually black, which displays curved lustrous surfaces when
fractured. According to Carol Howe (1979) "the amount of control that
a skilled workman can exercise over obsidian is amazing. Teodore
Orcutt, a Karok Indian, one lived at Red Rock near Dorris,
California. He learned the arrowhead maker's art from his father, who
was the village specialist. The giant blade in figure 1, now in the
Nevada Historical Museum at Reno, Nevada, is an example of his work,
though not ancient, it represents the almost lost hertage of an
ancient art. Orcutt told Alfred Collier of Klamath Falls that it took
years of practice for him to became proficient."
While still in his teens he began to master the art of flintknapping.
First he learned the percussion method of knapping (Percussion method-
the act of creating some implements by controlled impact flake
detachment) and after several years he could reduce a fairly large
mass of obsidian into a flat plate like biface (biface-a large spear
head shaped blank with flake scars covering both faces), he was also
becoming more adapt to the pressure flaking techniques with a hand
held antler tine compressor (Pressure flaking- a process of forming
and sharpening stone by removing surplus material with pushing
pressure- in the form of flakes using an antler tine). His
arrowheads, spear points and other flint work became quite nice and
he began to experiment with eccentric forms and often knapped
butterfly, dog, eagles and other zoomorphic (zoomorphic-abstract
animal shaped art) and anthropomorphic (anthropomorphic-abstract
human shaped art) forms out of fine quality, fancy obsidians provided
to him by his uncle. He was also in his teens when he learned the art
of bead weaver, brain tanning of hides and arrowsmithing.
In 1885, Ted was 23 years old and spend nearly all his time after
work flintknapping and crafting traditional Karok items. It was at
this age that one morning Ted's uncle told him to get his bed roll as
he was now ready to participate in the sacred act of collecting
lithic material. This was an honor that Ted had looked forward to for
many years and he was very excited. Ted ran back to tell his mother
but she was already standing outside with Ted's bed role and some
food she had prepared.
Not only the obsidian collecting was important but the
cerimonialism involved in doing so as well. Obsidian mining was
something that had been done by hundreds of generations of Karok and
it was not to be taken lightly. Before white mining laws came about,
Native Americans relied on the concept of "neutral ground", even
tribes which were bitter enemies could meet at the obsidian quarries
and share knapping and lithic information.
As their buckboard wagon arrived at the obsidian outcrop, Ted jumped
out of his seat down into the dark damp soil, his boots leaving
imprints in the half dried mud, it was early spring and the grass was
vibrant green. Black obsidian chips glistened and sparkled all over
the land scape. When Mus-su-petafich showed young Ted how to mine and
quarry obsidian he first left an offering of tobacco, when he
performed lithic reduction (lithic-greek for stone, term most often
used in science, reduction-the miners often made preformed artifact
blanks to lessen the bulk for transport) Mus-su-petafich drove the
obsidian flakes off the core with a soft hammer stone. Large blocks
of obsidian were quarried by splitting them off giant boulders with
the use of fire. Mus-su-petafich would build a bon fire against the
rock. As each flake came off, no matter what the method of
extraction, he would set it in a pile and categorized them as his
ancestors had and said "this one is for war, this one is for bear,
this one is for deer hunting, this one is for trade, this one is for
sale". The various piles were kept separate until they were knapped
to completion and were all set aside for their original purpose. Mus-
su-petafich told Ted why each flake (or spall) had a special purpose
based on its form, structure, fracture-ability, texture, hardness and
color. There was a different Karok word for each type and variability
in the obsidian. Red obsidian was considered ritually poison and
these were usually saved for war or revenge, at this time in history
many of the customs had changed and Mus-su-petchafich made beautiful
points for sale and trade with varieties of obsidian that were once
reserved for the kill. There were numerous instances when Mus-su-
petchafich had to obtain subsurface, unweathered material, but these
were for the most part small pit mines.
It took Ted many years of mentoring with his uncle before he began to
fully understand the Karok lithic tradition. The two men made
thousands of arrowheads, lithic art and traditional Karok costumes
and marketed them, not only to traditional Indians but also, to a
wealthy eastern clientele. As Ted got older flintknapping became an
obsession, nearly all his extra time was spent either collecting
extravagant lithic material or flintknapping, in bad whether and at
night he would plan his strategy for some lithic challenge he was
working on and his quest for every better lithic material began
taking him farther and farther from home. Oregon's Glass buttes,
Goose Lake, Blue Mt., in Northern California, Battle Mountain
Chalcedony in Nevada Opal, agate and jasper from the coastal areas
and the inland deserts. On several occasions Ted Orcutt made trips to
Wyoming, the Dakotas and many locations in Utah and Idaho where he
would find specific lithic materials for special orders. Herb Wynet
was Orcutt's traveling partner and "sidekick" on many of these trips
and Herb would do all the driving so his friend "Theo" could gaze out
the car window at the country-side. Ted could look at the geology and
topography of an area if he had been there before or not and give a
good prediction, with great accuracy, where the lithic material would
be, he was correct nearly every time. On these trips Orcutt kept a
list of artifact orders on hand, this way he knew what lithic
material to get and what to focus on at his afternoon knapping
sessions on the road. In this manor Ted never fell behind on his
orders while on his flint hunting adventures. In 1902 Ted moved to
Red Rock Valley near Mount Hebron he was now 40 years old and his
percussion biface knapping was becoming better than ever. In the
earlier years Ted and his uncle had made I name for themselves among
the Native Americans in their area by knapping the large White Dear
Dance ceremonial blades for the White Deer Dance Rituals, Ted was now
challenged by these massive blades and he had a compulsive need to go
ever larger and more spectacular using many varieties of flint and
obsidian to make ever more elaborate pieces. By 1905, at age 43
Orcutt was knapping hundreds of obsidian blades of massive size, his
command over the percussion method of knapping was now unrepressed in
the history of the world.
In 1911 Ted was 49 years old when he got the job of postmaster of the
Tecnor post office in Red Rock. It was August of the same year that
Ted sat on the wooden bench outside his house and read about Ishi in
the local newspaper, the whole thing with Ishi took place only a few
miles from Ted's house, curiously, the Hokan language family
encompasses both Yahi (Ishi's language) and Karok (Orcutt's
language). It was a local joke to Ted people would say "hey Theo, did
you hear Mr. Ishi is the last arrow head maker!"
Ted was self-educated, read a good deal and by all accounts wrote a
good hand. The job as postmaster was taxing and left little idle time
to knap stone so in 1926, at the age of 62, he gave up the postmaster
job and began hauling mail from Mt. Hebron, at Technor, in Red Rock
Valley, first with horse and buggy and later in a Model T Ford, which
Ted bought new. During this time Orcutt was knapping more than ever
and was selling items through out the eastern United States, Europe
and Museums through out the world. He had well received exhibitions
at the California State Fair in Sacramento, a permanent display in
the Memorial Flower Shop in Woodland, California and he had shipped
his points to many hundreds of museums and collectors. He had a claim
where he mined obsidian near Wagontire, Eastern Oregon. It was in
this period also that Ted's ceremonial blades went from the 30 inch
long giants to the 48 inch long monsters that made gave him the
title "king of the flintknappers". This same time period Ted took a
half ton block of glass Mountain obsidian and carefully and precisely
knapped a 48 1/2 inch long ceremonial knife, which was 9 inches wide
and only 1-3/4 inch thick. This massive bifaced blade still hold the
world record for size, it rests in the Smithsonian Institute, a
similar one is in the Nevada Historical Museum at Reno, Nevada. In
the Natural History museum in Sacramento there is a massive
collection of large Orcutt blades, 176 in all, they are in an old box
marked "source unknown". The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles has many
Orcutt blades and also some of the White Deer Dance costumes Ted
made. As for the 48 inch blade, one witness to the giant blade
manufacture heard Ted speak really softly while working on the giant
blade, " I get awful nervous when I'm working on this, I'm afraid
I'll break it just before I finish."
The International Flintknappers ‘ Hall of Fame and Museum is encouraging individuals of all ages to “Be A Superior Example,” through a new education program as part of a new curriculum to promote healthy habits, while encouraging everyone to live free of drugs and other such substances or vices. It serves as the central point for the study of the history of flintknapping in the United States and beyond, displays flintknapping-related artifacts and exhibits, and honors those who have excelled in the craft, research/ writing, promoting events, and serving the knapping community in an ethical manner.
François Bordes
"François Bordes (1919 - 1981) was a French scientist, archaeologist and geologist and was a professor of prehistory and quaternary geology at the Science Faculty of Bordeaux. Bordes changed the approach of prehistoric lithic industries, by introducing scientific and statistical studies in the use of experimental flint knapping. He duplicated some 63 tool types and made over 100,000 stone tools in his life; he also concluded that there were four Neanderthal cultures based on stone tool assembleges. Bordes wrote many books which include the Old Stone Age and A Tale Of Two Caves and many articles under the "pen name" Francis Carsac." (Experimental Archaeology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
" François Bordes
François Bordes (December 30, 1919 – April 30, 1981), also known by the pen name of Francis Carsac, was a French scientist, geologist, and archaeologist. He was a professor of prehistory and quaternary geology at the Science Faculty of Bordeaux. He deeply renewed the approach of prehistoric lithic industries, introducing statistical studies in typology and expanding the use of experimental flint knapping.
He also published many science fiction novels under his pen name. His books have not been translated into English. On the other hand, in USSR the science fiction of Carsac was very popular. He was translated and published into Russian as well as Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Estonian amongst others.
[edit] Bibliography
Prehistory "Principes d'une méthode d'étude des techniques de débitage et de la typologie du Paléolithique ancien et moyen", L'Anthropologie, t. 54 (1950)
A Tale of two caves, Harper and Row, 169 p., (1972)
Typologie du Paléolithique ancien et moyen, Delmas, Publications de l'Institut de Préhistoire de l'Université de Bordeaux, Mémoire n° 1 (1961), réédition CNRS 1988 : ISBN 2-87682-005-6
Leçons sur le Paléolithique, CNRS, 3 vol. (1984)
Science fiction Ceux de nulle part (Those from nowhere) (1954)
Les Robinsons du Cosmos (The Robinsons of the Cosmos) (1955)
Terre en fuite (Fleeing Earth) (1960)
Ce monde est nôtre (This world is ours) (1962)
Pour patrie, l'espace (For homeland, space) (1962)
La vermine du lion (The vermin of the lion) (1967)"
According to Ray Harwood's "History of Modern Flintknapping", Errett Callahan read more and more of Bordes's works and met him several
times. Francois Bordes stayed at Callahan's house for several days in
1977. Bordes, as Errett, was inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs and he
published numerous science fiction novels. Callahan, as a college
student, had once been assigned to be Bordes's escort to a knapping
demonstration sponsored by the Anthropology department in D.C. for
the Leaky Foundation lectures. In 1977 Bordes spent four days
knapping there in Richmond. Bordes had plenty of money to visit the
U.S.A. because not only was he a master flintknapper and Europe's
leading archaeologist, but also one of the most popular science
fiction writers in France. According to Callahan Bordes wrote dozens
of novels under the pen name of Franci Carsac. Callahan was
influenced quite a bit by Bordes. At the same time Errett was also
reading the works of Don Crabtree. Errett was Fascinated by Crabtree,
they met in Calgary in 1974 and Crabtree gradually became a heavy
influence on Errett's knapping. J.B. Sollberger was another major
influence and led Errett to bigger and better things than he could
have without that input. Gene Titmus of Idaho, a friend of Crabtree
was also a major influence on Callahan, mostly his notching and
serrating techniques. Errett stayed in close contact with Gene for
many years, Gene a master knapper of percussion and, like Don, about
the nicest and humblest guy he'd ever met.
Some other overseas influences on Errett were Jacques Pelegrin and Bo
Madsen. Pelegrin had been Bordes number one student in France,
working under him for years. Pelgrin first trained with Bordes over
six summers, for three weeks each summer. Pelegrin worked with a
hardwood billit, which he learned to use from Bordes's friend in
Paris, Jacques Tixier, whom was one of the Masters of flintworking of
the time. Pelegrin became very good with boxwood. Jacques Pelegrin's
father built a cottage in the French woods, here Jacques reflected on
archaeological concepts and flintknapping. At this time, in the
1970s, Pilegrin was writing a bit back and forth to Master Don
Crabtree in the USA and Jacques had begun to read and interprit
Crabtree's publications. Pelegrin did public flintknapping
demonstations in the Archeodrome, which is on the main road between
Beaune and Lyon, France. He is concidered one of the best
flintknappers in the world. Pelegrin and Bordes learned English
together and spend years flintknapping together and learning, master
and student became knapping partners. Jacques Pelgrin went through
almost all the Paleolthic French technologies while learning his
craft- Levallois, blade making, different kinds of Paleolithic tools,
different kinds of flint cores, and leave points, including Solutrean
pressure material. It is an interesting fact that Pelegrin learned to
flintknap standing up and only changes after his first exposure to
other knappers and text. Crabtree died on November 16,
1980 from complications of heart disease, within six months of
Francois Bordes . When Bordes and Crabtree passed away the 1970's
academic flintknapping heyday passed away with Them .It was Francois Bordes that realy put flintknapping on the world map.
Bordes was internationally known for having studied and recreating
ancient stone tools from 12,000 years ago. Bordes duplicated some 63
tool types. Bordes made over 100,000 stone tools in his life. He was
Born in France in 1919. Bordes was director of the Labratory of
Quarternary Geology and History at the University of Bordeaux,
France. Bordes concluded that there were four Neanderthal cultures
based on stone tool assembleges.
Francois Bordes was an accomplished fellow. He wrote many books which
include the Old Stone Age and A Tale Of Two Caves. He wrote several
books and many articles under the "pen name" Francis Carsac. Bordes
was a hot tempered fellow, with a massive brain and bank account to
match, he often visited America and his friends; Don Crabtree, Errett
Callahan and Bruce Bradely. Francois Bordes died on April 30th, 1981
while lecturing at the University of Arizona at Tuson.
February 26, 1999
8:00 - 12:00
Field Techniques and Analytical Methods Workshop
Presentation by Dr. Irv Rovner
North Carolina State University :
Jane Eastman: Our next presenter is Dr. Irwin Rovner from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. He is going to be talking about the digital imaging methods and equipment. He’s got this system on display near the flintknapping.
Rovner: I was told that we’re going to be talking about methodology this morning. So, you want methodology – I don’t have any slides of sunsets, I don’t have any slides of stratigraphic units. I have no slides of artifacts. If you want methodology, you’re going to get methodology.
For me, this is almost a homecoming. What has to be clearly the most phenomenal professional experience I’ve ever had in my entire career as an archaeologist was years ago when I was fortunate enough to be selected for one of the first Don Crabtree flintknapping schools. I sat in the cottonwood grove on the edge of the Snake River breaking rock with Don Crabtree the year that Francois Bordes showed up. To sit there and break rock with those two pioneering giants of lithic replication studies was just unsurpassed. To watch those two men – to actually break rock with them – was sublime.
[There were] many, many stories that may never see print. We had a truckload of Glass Buttes, Oregon, obsidian, which Don Crabtree loved. Of course, we all used obsidian. But when Francois arrived, he went right past the big pile of obsidian, right for the vesicular basalts and the cherts and the quartzites. He did his work on the Dordogne flints, you know. So, I watched him do his work and he would sit under the tree and he would sing Hank Williams Country and Western songs, punctuated by French obscenities every time he popped a hinge fracture. Wonderful! It may be politically incorrect, but I asked him, “Professor Bordes, don’t you use obsidian?” He said, “Ah! Obsidian is terrible stuff. It is like a woman – very fragile and never does what you want it to!”
The story of modern California knapping. I met Jeannie Binning at the
1984 NARC knap in. Jeannie one of the better knappers, and is most
likely the best female flintknapper in the world,at that time, and still, , She is now an
instructor at U.C. Riverside. This is where she got her Ph.D..
Jeannie was born and raised in southern California and got her BA
degree and Cal. State Northrige while working at NARC. Jeannie
Binning is a master at knapping obsidian and true to her instructors,
Don Crabtree and later Jeffery Flenniken, she is excellent at
knapping large wide obsidian bifaced blades. Jeannie was told me the
story of when she first went to the Crabtree Flintknapping Field
School in Idaho. She and some other students arrived at the little
airport and some old guy came and picked the up in some old jalopy,
the guy was nice enough and rather unassuming. It wasn't until they
were at their destination that she learned the old guy was" the dean
of American flintknapping", Don Crabtree. She told me that when Don
was teaching her some technique and he cut his hand. he was on blood
thinners for his heart condition and blood was squirting everywhere ,
but he kept on knapping, he was intent on teaching me. Jeannie has
been to many of the Field Schools, first as a student then as an
assistant. It was through Crabtree that Jeannie met Francois Bordes.
For one of Bordes Films, he was required to percussion knap, so Jeannie
supplied him some Farmington Chert, a very notoriously tough California lithic material,
Bordes swung his hammer stone as hard as he could, without any notable results. and between filming cussed profusely in French.
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According to Bruce Bradley "François Bordes spent a whole semester at U of A in spring 1970 and he and I spent most every spare moment knapping in a little room on the ground floor of the Anthro building. I still don't know why it was, but he and I hit it off extremely well (pun intended). Our temperaments were absolute opposites. I was born with patience (in knapping) and a high threshold of frustration. When something went wrong and I screwed up I would, for the most part, shrug my shoulders and toss the offending pieces over my shoulder and quietly begin over. François on the other hand was a 'power knapper' and what he lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer force. You can imagine how this worked with the brittle obsidian we had to work with. There was an almost unbroken string of obscenities wafting out of that little room and bouncing around the halls of the Anthro. building. One of François's favorite sayings was "Flint, she is a woman, obsidian, she is a whore". I learned how to swear in 14 languages! A skill I seldom employ, but on rare occasions I can still be heard mumbling unintelligibly some of those colorful phrases.
François invited me to participate in his middle paleolithic excavations in SW France that summer and I spent several glorious months digging in 50,000 year old sites, knapping incredible flint (mostly Bergerac), and exploring the countryside and backwoods of the Dordogne. During this time, I once again met up with Jacques Tixier who invited me to come to Lebanon and dig with him near Beirut. This I couldn't pass up and I went there in September 1970. Although I was there only a short three weeks, I managed to have some great adventures and discovered the amazing light pink flint of the Baka Valley. On the way home, I visited a French Canadian archaeologist who I worked with in France, in Cambridge, England. There I was introduced to the rich blue-black flints of the European chalks. I managed to visit the famous Brandon gunflint knapping areas and saw Grimes Graves, the neolithic flint mining complex. All the while I continued knapping at every possible opportunity."
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BORDES IN AMERICA JAMES SACKETT:
"Finally, a word is in order regarding Bordes’ quite special relationship to America, which he first
saw in 1959, revisited numerous times, and where he ultimately met his untimely death. His
feelings about the USA, true to his contradictory character, were highly mixed. For he was
A horizontal exposure of a stone pavage found in the uppermost Paleolithic occupation floor at Solvieux.
14
intensively chauvinistic, as we have seen, and in fact viscerally anti-American when it came to
matters of foreign policy. Some of his remarks on the topic were callously insensitive, especially
to those of us who had lost family, friends, and neighbors on French soil in two world wars. Yet
his love of our land, as opposed to our nation, was itself altogether genuine. He was particularly
attracted, as are many Europeans, by the vast and raw beauty of the Southwest, an attraction no
doubt enriched by an almost juvenile nostalgia for the lore of the old Far West created by
American cowboy novels and movies. And there was something in the openness of the
American character he particularly enjoyed, perhaps, fairly or not, in contrast to the supposed
reserve of our Anglophone counterparts across the ocean.
My impression is that Americans were more likely than his own countryman to find him in a
relaxed, congenial, and receptive mood. In part this was due to the fact that he was as welcome
in New York as Los Angeles, in Chicago as in San Francisco. And intellectual life in America
probably seemed less factionalized and partisan than it is in France (a fact, as we have seen, for
which he himself must bear some responsibility). Then too was the great esteem he enjoyed
among American replicators of stone tools, stemming from his early association with Donald
Crabtree. Knappers all belong to the same fraternity and practice a craft and mindset that overrides
ethnic, linguistic, and even archaeological boundaries. As a result, Bordes was able to forge
close and empathetic bonds with skilled colleagues who may never have known nor cared how
the stratigraphy of Pech de l’Azé correlates with that of Combe-Grenal or why some researchers
argue that conventionally recognized Early Magdalenian industries constitute an historically
distinct techno-complex, the Badegoulian. I imagine he welcomed the intellectual vacation this
afforded.
Bordes was fond of American students, and they reciprocated warmly. They found it difficult to
resist someone who loved to show off, spoke so colorfully and amusingly in a strong French
accent, all the while sporting a cowboy hat and a Far-West bola tie. But, at a more fundamental
level, they felt the force of his scholarly dedication and eagerness to share his knowledge; they
appreciated the fact that he took them seriously, even if they did not always have the preparation
needed to follow the details of his argument. I believe this is why he took so much care in
writing that lucid exposition of Mousterian archeology, A Tale of Two Caves (1972), which to
my knowledge sadly never appeared in French..
Bordes’ relations with his fellow prehistorians in America are not so easily summarized. While
he was highly respected by nearly all—he was (and remains so thirty years after his death)--the
center of controversy with respect to theoretical matters. I doubt he took it all too seriously. To be
sure, he admired the accomplishments and vigor of North American archaeologists, and for
obvious reasons followed developments in Paleo-Indian research closely. But he never bought
into the proposition that archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing. And he thought the
philosophical posturing of the New Archaeology of his era pretentiously naive. At the same time,
he seemingly felt that that the problem was exacerbated by the fact that most American
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archaeologists at the time era were to be found in academic departments, intellectual settings
whose nature it is to promote theoretical controversy for its own sake (especially among those of
its members who otherwise would have nothing of substance to say). I suspect he held, probably
rightly, that American archaeology would be better served if the country possessed a semiindependent,
empirically oriented scientific establishment comparable to the excellent Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, which supplied the bulk of the full-time archaeological
researchers in France.
Again, of course, I simplify. No one denies that a scientific engine cannot be driven without good
theory, and Bordes knew this as well as any American. But to the end he remained a militantly
down-to-earth homme-de-terrain. It was ignorance and intellectual pretension, not ideas, that he
opposed. And if he sometimes struck Americans as being diffident and over simplistic in dealing
with theoretical questions, we must keep in mind the dualistic nature of his character. For
archaeological theory must have seemed rather dull in comparison to the rich store of novelty
and imagination which he found in sharing the same mind with his alter ego, Françis Carsac.
Perhaps Americans would have had a greater and more nuanced appreciation of François Bordes
had they also been given the opportunity to know Francis Carsac. But Carsac, unfortunately,
never spoke a word of English."
JAMES SACKETT
Professor emeritus, Anthropology, UCLA
Director, European Laboratory
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
University of California, Los Angeles
