Bruce Bradley
In Texas, The late J.B. Sollberger was
considered the master of Folsom and learned on his own to create
masterful fluted points with a methodology involving the use of the
fulcrum and lever . J.B.s replicas were beautifully crafted out of
the finest of Texas flints. Again part of the Sollberger legacy is
the vast amount of published works and theories that he pioneered.
J.B. passed away on May, 7th 1995. In the Southern United States two
knappers of quite diverse back grounds were also working on the
Folsom mystery: D.C. Waldorf of Missouri and Errett Callahan of
Virginia. Waldorf crafted his replicas in a large part to sell in the
commercial market place, and sold them as replicas, but also to
research the Folsom technologies for books he would later write and
market. One of Waldorf's books, The Art of Flintknapping, sold over
40,000 copies. Waldorf is still active in both flintknapping and the
study of fluted point technologies and he and his wife, Val, publish
a magazine called Chips that is devoted to flintknapping. Callahan
also worked and studied in a social vacuum in the 1960s, but he had
the advantage of academia behind him, yet in those days the published
material was both sparse and, to a large degree, incorrect. Callahan
went on to publish perhaps the most important paper written to date
on fluted point studies, The Basics of Biface Knapping in the Eastern
Fluted Point Tradition. In the American Southwest Circa the mid to
late 1960s, the new Folsom age was being revised by two additional
notable experimentalists, Bob Patten, of Lakewood, Colorado and Bruce
Bradley of Tucson, Arizona. Bruce Bradley worked closely with
Crabtree and Sollberger as well as French flintknapper Francois
Bordes. Once Bruce Bradley's knapping skills were well honed he began
working with some of the world's best known Paleo-archaeologists;
George Frison, Vance Haynes, Rob Bonnichson and Dennis Stanford of
the Smithsonian Institute. In 1980 Bruce Bradley was involved with
these scientists in a PBS Odyssey television special called Seeking
The First Americans. In this now classic film Bruce Bradley knapped
two paleo type points. Bradley also participated in "Clovis and
beyond" and continues his involvement in lithic research. Bob Patten
learned the high plains paleo tradition and became a master of
creating Folsom points out of tough unheated lithic materials. Ten
Years after Bruce Bradley appeared on the Odyssey special, Bob Patten
was featured crafting a fluted Clovis point in the PBS television
special- NOVA: Search For the First Americans, and like the Odyssey
special ten years before, the film featured Dennis Stanford and Vance
Haynes. Nearly a decade after the film Bob published a book on his
flintknapping methodologies called Old Stones New Eyes. Bob is often
seen around the country conducting Flintknapping demonstrations at
archaeological meetings and was recently featured at "Clovis and
Beyond" and "The Folsom Workshop" . Most of the knappers today are
not part of the 1960s experimentalism movement, the new field of
thought is as "lithic art" and the points are created not with
aboriginal methods that add to the data base of experimental
archaeology, but with lapidary equipment, they contribute very little
to the study of stone tools or ancient artifact studies. The Folsom
fluted lanceolate point was named by J.D. Figgins in 1934 after
Folsom, New Mexico. According to the American Museum of Natural
History the first Folsom point was discovered near Folsom, New Mexico
on September 1, 1927 on a joint expedition by archaeologists from the
American Museum of Natural History and the Denver Museum of Natural
History. This small fluted dart or spear point stands among the most
important archaeological finds ever made on this continent. This
artifact is now displayed in a cast of the bones of an ancient
extinct bison in which it was embedded, thus re-creating the context
in which it was found by members of that original expedition. Folsom
points tend to date between 10,000 BC to 8,000 BC. Folsom points have
a large geographic range within the Americas. Folsom points are
characterized by their short lanceolate basic form, concave base and
long flute extending on both faces from base, or proximal end, toward
the tip, or distal end, of the point. The purpose of the flute has
long been the subject of great controversy. Some have postulated that
the flute is an artistic element and may represent a flame and others
feel it has a functional purpose and was for blood letting from the
wound of their prey, thus causing the prey to bleed and weaken and
leave a trail for the hunter to fallow. others feel it is simply a
hafting technique where the split shaft nicely fits into the fluted
channel. What-ever the purpose, it seems to have evolved and been
accentuated from the older Clovis points that were also fluted from
the base, or proximal end. According to Michael Waters (1999), from
Texas A&M University, archaeologists: in the early 1950s artifacts,
later to become known as Clovis, were found beneath the Folsom
cultural horizon at Blackwater Draw, near Clovis, New Mexico and were
later carbon dated to nearly 13,359 BP. Clovis appears to have
highbred, or evolved into Folsom and the point made more stream-lined
and the flute improved and accentuated, the technology changing with
hunting technologies that were closely intertwined with the available
game.
This long-awaited book for the University of California Press is in production. We have made numerous presentations in public and academic venues throughout North America, South America, Western Europe and even polar Siberia. Dennis and I published a summary of the theory in World Archaeology in December 2004. This was followed 1n 2005 in World Archaeology by a rebuttal by Straus, Meltzer and Goebel. Then in 2006 in World Archaeology Dennis and I published our response. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to make these available on this web page as they are in copyright.
The "Clovis First" and "Beringia Only" theories have been crumbling for years, but for many of us are now totally collapsed. There is now overwhelming direct evidence for pre-Clovis occupation of the American continents, and virtually no direct evidence that the progenitors of Clovis came from Siberia. We contend that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates southwestern Europe, specifically the Ice Age Solutrean Culture of France and Spain, as the source of the people that developed into Clovis.
According to Paleo specialist, Bob Patten, of Lakewood, Colorado
(1999) when mammoths went extinct, spear points went through a re-
engineering, from the large Clovis to a more delicate form dominated
by the central flute scar. Instead of the mammoth the new quarry was
Bison Antiquus, a larger and more formidable game than the modern
bison.Even with the past few decades of Paleo point replication
studies the true production methodology is not completely understood.
According to Patten "it is likely that it will be some time before we
can say we know with assurance how Folsom points were made". Patten
prefers a method known as the rocker punch method. Patten's response
to the aboriginal flute method is this "My answer is that aboriginal
flute flake scars have distinctive attributes of flatness, rippling,
thickness, and so on. The rocker punch method seems to most closely
match original results" (Patten, 1999). At this time in
archaeological circles the theories on the first peoples of the New
World have been changing, rather than crossing the Bering land bridge
from northeast Asia to Alaska theories, they have come up with
theories of "paleo-notical", a Paleo ocean migration from Europe
along the edge of the polar ice cap into the northern most tip of
North America. Clovis-like Solutrean projectile points found in
Europe help support this hypothesis . If Clovis man indeed came to
the New World by boat, then it is my theory that the fluted point
technology was originally one that came from stone age harpoon tips.
In Alaska there is a fluted point type known as the Dorset point
which is characterized by two precise flutes or harpoon end blades
removed from the tip or distal end of this small flint triangular
harpoon point type. These paleo-eskimo points were part of a
specialized material culture based on northern marine exploitation
(Renouf, 1991) The first big game brought down by fluted points was
possibly not Pleistocene mega-fauna but large sea mammals, and the
altatl may have first been a harpoon launcher and later adapted to
land use as a spear thrower.
Professor Bruce Bradley
.
EXARC:
"Bruce Bradley is Director of the Experimental Archaeology Masters Programme and has extensive experience with Stone Age technologies and experimental archaeology. He was trained in 4-field anthropology at the University of Arizona. His early research was focused on the North American Southwest and Great Plains where he applied an anthropological approach to much of his work. Since then his research has included the Upper Palaeolithic of Russia and France, and horse domestication in Central Asia. His current research deals with the early peopling of the New World and prehistoric Pueblo archaeology of the American Southwest, again incorporating anthropological theory in his interpretations. This perspective is also brought to the classroom in many of the modules he teaches. Bruce is also active in bringing his archaeological and anthropological interests to the public through presentations, teaching, interaction with Native American communities and participation in documentaries. His current research project ‘Learning to be Human’ explores the way in which individuals develop expertise in flintknapping and how these skills change the brain".
BRUCE BRADLEY:
" My involvement with knapping and primitive technologies goes all the way back to before I could walk. My parents have home movies of me sitting on the ground hitting rocks together as a toddler. I'm thoroughly convinced that my knapping is a genetic thing. I, like many other 'spontaneous knappers', are no doubt throwbacks from the stone age. Throughout my childhood in Michigan I was fascinated with Indian lore and relics but had little exposure to the real things. I once visited an old man during an Indian Guides outing who showed us his extensive collection of relics. From that time I tried to make arrowheads by grinding pieces of sandstone (no flint or chert nearby).
In the late 1960s the whole family took a camping trip through the West where I saw lots of arrowheads and other artifacts in museums, shops, etc. In Cody, Wyoming I bought my first arrowhead in a souvenir shop (I have since noted that it is an old base with a nail-reworked tip.) I also finally connected obsidian with arrowheads. Later in the trip I bought a chunk of obsidian from a rock shop and a friend and I proceeded to pulverize it on a picnic table in Colorado National Monument. I didn't even understand the concept of flake, but it was the beginning of a long obsession with knapping.
While I was at University, I gained field experience in archaeology and continued to bust rocks on my own. At the time, I had seen nothing about how it was done other than a very simple (and inaccurate) diagram in a beginning archaeology book. In 1969 I was fortunate to have the chance to watch and later work with three prominent knappers- Don Crabtree, François Bordes, and Jacques Tixier. All three came to the University under the sponsorship of Professor Art Jelinek. This was a time of great advancement in my own skills. It wasn't so much the techniques that I learned as it was the exposure to new flaking tools.
My obsession continued unabated but it was hard coming by good flaking stone. Like many others, I scrounged old bleach bottle bases from local dumps. I even went through a Bacardi phase. There were also some other students who became inspired (Bruce Huckell and Mike Collins among others). We banded together and bought bulk obsidian from a rock shop in El Paso, Texas. We mostly worked on our own but would occasionally get together for our own small "knap-ins" (it was the time of antiwar sit-ins and love-ins but we were to busy knapping to be involved in those extra-curricular activities).
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.
A professor at Cambridge, Dr. Charles McBurney, became interested in my skills and invited me to apply to graduate school. At that time I had still had enough academics for awhile, so I deferred an answer and returned to the American Southwest and made my living through 'have-trowel-will-travel" archaeology. I also spent some of the summer of 1971 travelling with my dog Jake through Wyoming and two weeks at Don Crabtree's field school outside Twin Falls, Idaho. This exposed me to the amazing variety of flaking stones in that part of the world from the fine-grained quartzites and multicolored jaspers of Spanish Diggings to the brown brittle ignumbrites of SW Idaho.
I have since had many additional knapping adventures and these have led me to some amazing opportunities in paleoindian archaeology in North America, involvement with the pre-Clovis controversy, and back to the Old World where I received my PhD from Cambridge ( I busted rocks for my dissertation work), and eventually into an involvement in Russian paleolithic archaeology. Throughout all of these experiences, I have maintained my main knapping motivations of creating beautiful objects as well as the challenge of figuring out ancient technologies. For me knapping is art and archaeology.
I'm not sure what I'd be doing if it hadn't been for the chance encounters with some dedicated knapper/archaeologists or those nonknapper/archaeologists who recognized the value of knapping and encouraged my involvement in both. A few of these included the three distinguished knappers I mentioned earlier along with Drs. C. Garth Sampsom, Charles McBurney, Dennis Stanford, Marie Wormington, and not the least George Frison. My knapping skills were also carefully honed during long and frequent visits with J.B Sollberger in his backyard in Dallas. I have been lucky in my peers with learning from such noted knappers as Bruce Huckell, D.C. Waldorf, Eugene Gryba, Errett Callahan, Greg Nunn, Bob Patton, Jeff Flenniken, Witold Migal (see:Prehistoric Flint Mining in Poland) , and not the least my Russian compatriot Yevgenij Giria. I must also credit my family who tolerated my obsession (and the dangerous messes I left laying around), encouraged and even helped finance some of my travels and education, and ultimately my wife Cindy and children Travis, Kyle, and Shannon who have accepted my aberration as an integral part of my character, and love me none-the-less.
I knap mostly for fun and to learn about processes that may have been used in the past. I also occasionally sell individual pieces and sets. These are all documented and marked so that they can't be passed off as old. I have supplied teaching and display sets to many universities and museums, including the Smithsonian, the New York Natural History Museum, the Denver and Albuquerque Museums of Natural History, and several other museums. I have also specialized in art sets of Paleoindian and High Plains projectile points and knives. I also use stone knives when I hunt large game and have found them to be superior for field dressing and skinning. My hunting partners have discovered the same thing and I have made them knives for their own use."
..
