FRANÇOIS BORDES Paul Pettitt

P. Pettitt: François Bordes FRANÇOIS BORDES Paul Pettitt Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ET, UK. Contact email: [email protected] ___________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT François Bordes was one of the most influential Palaeolithic archaeologists in the western European and North American paradigms. In a career that spanned some four decades he devised the classificatory scheme that is still widely employed today, through meticulous excavation of Quaternary sites in France from the Périgord to the Paris Basin, pioneering experimental knapping, ensuring that the heuristic of l‟evolution buissonante came to define how Palaeolithic archaeologists conceived of change, and, particularly, the introduction of quantification to existing type fossil approaches to the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Here, I survey briefly some main points of his work, and his contribution to and opinion of other contributions to the „Mousterian debate‟. Far from being restricted to developing our understanding of the Mousterian, Bordes‟ output was just as important in the Lower and Upper Palaeolithic. His technotypological scheme, introduced in the 1950s, precipitated a major change in the way prehistorians thought about the Palaeolithic record, and essentially ushered in the modern intellectual world. Full reference: Pettitt, P. 2009. François Bordes. In R. Hosfield, F. Wenban-Smith & M. Pope (eds.) Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Special Volume 30 of Lithics: The Journal of the Lithic Studies Society): 201–212. Lithic Studies Society, London. Keywords: Lithics, Mousterian, Middle Palaeolithic, Typology, France INTRODUCTION acquaintance with lithics from southwest French sites — many of which he excavated For the middle decades of the twentieth — yet was not afraid to extend the insights century, the Palaeolithic of the Périgord and he‘d gained from study of these sites to a François Bordes (1919–1981: Figure 1) were continental or even global stage. The purpose effectively synonymous. Along with his of this paper is not to provide a wife, Denise de Sonneville-Bordes (1919– comprehensive review of Bordes‘ work, but 2008) Bordes set the technological and rather to ‗sample‘ areas in which his typological scene for the western European influence was (and remains) profound, and research paradigm from the early 1950s, and place these in something of a wider context. has left a legacy that still influences Readers may find it somewhat biased in researchers in Western and Central Europe favour of the Anglophone literature: it is and North America to this day. He can deliberately so, to show the profound effect indeed be regarded as ―one of the founders Bordes‘ work had on Anglo-American of modern Palaeolithic research‖ (Rolland & archaeology, and this should not be taken to Dibble 1990: 481). Like his predecessors lessen the considerable influence Bordes had such as the Abbé Breuil (Davies, this in France and many other European volume) Bordes had an intimate countries. When discussing Bordes it is 201 Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Lithics 30) inevitable that the subject of ‗Mousterian Bordes, not the Mousterian, and my variability‘ will come somewhat to the fore; I coverage is intended to elucidate Bordes‘ have felt it necessary to provide a brief contribution and opinions about the ‗history‘ of the debate that ensued after contribution of others to the debate. First, Bordes recognised Middle Palaeolithic however, I shall explore his wider interests assemblage patterning, but this is cursory and achievements. and uneven for a reason; this is a paper about Figure 1: François Bordes (right) with F. Clark Howell. From the collection of Denise de Sonneville- Bordes. Unknown photographer. [Photograph courtesy of Michel Lenoir] BORDES’ BROADER CAREER AND Bordes‘ work was the cornerstone of my THE BORDESIAN ERA doctoral research; I was investigating aspects of Mousterian lithic assemblage variability, Perhaps the best way to crystallise Bordes‘ in southwest France, using collections from contribution to Palaeolithic archaeology is to Bordes‘ own excavations at Combe Grenal pose the question of what the field would be and Pech de l‘Azé. Bordes bestrode the like had he not made any contribution to it. pages of the thesis like the colossus. My This question was, in fact, posed to me supervisor Paul Mellars and I would often during my PhD viva in 1998 by my discuss aspects of Bordes‘ work, and examiners, Clive Gamble and John Gowlett. particularly the debates between himself, 202 P. Pettitt: François Bordes Bordes and Binford over what the would have found the route at some point, technological and typological variability but one wonders how far behind the recognised within the Mousterian meant. I discipline would have been if, for example, had read most of Bordes‘ series of Palaeolithic lithic analysis had missed the publications of the 1950s and 1960s in which ‗new archaeology boat‘ of the mid-1960s. he developed the méthode Bordes and in which he developed the typological, Bordes was, for much of his career, technological characterisation and statistical Professor of Prehistory and Quaternary analysis of lithic assemblages, and my copy Geology at the University of Bordeaux, of the Typologie du Paléolithique Ancien et where he had studied botany and geology in Moyen, which I had bought in Les Eyzies in the 1930s. At Bordeaux he inherited an 1993, never made it from my desk to the intellectual tradition that could be traced shelf until I had finished writing. Yet the back through Peyrony to Breuil, in which the question totally threw me. I had taken sequences of Palaeolithic assemblages Bordes‘ work totally for granted, and it took derived from the rockshelters of the some mental gymnastics to even try to Dordogne were seen to have wider (at least conceive what the academic field of Lower western European) significance, unfolded in and Middle Palaeolithic archaeology might a temporal succession over Pleistocene time, have been like if Bordes had not made such a and could be described and distinguished on pronounced contribution to the field. It could the basis of technotypological traits which easily have happened, given his history and formed the basis of an artefact taxonomic early interests. What if, for example, he had system (Sackett 1991, and see also Davies, stuck with botany; specialised in geology; this volume). Bordes, however, brought written science fiction as Francis Carsac full- geological expertise to Palaeolithic time; or worse, died as a resistance fighter in archaeology; his contact with Raymond the second world war? Our understanding of Vaufrey and Jean Piveteau in Paris during the lithic record would be considerably the second world war led to research on the poorer for want of his pioneering loess sequences and Lower and Middle experimental knapping (Bordes & Crabtree Palaeolithic archaeology of the Somme and 1969, and see Dibble & Debénath 1991: Seine Basins just after fighting ended, 222). There would be no vocabulary that resulting in the presentation of a thesis to the focussed prehistorians on why Middle Facultés des Sciences in Paris. From this Palaeolithic assemblages varied, and time onwards Bordes was working on a therefore no structured debate as to the standardised typology of the Lower and behavioural capacities of the Neanderthals. Middle Palaeolithic that culminated in the Lewis Binford would not have had Typologie (Bordes 1961b). The use of Mousterian variability to kick-start his fossiles directeurs had been promoted by the promotion of the ‗new archaeology‘, nor brothers Bouyssonie, but it was only with the would Paul Mellars have a chrono-cultural méthode Bordes that assemblages could be sequence to demonstrate assemblage change compared objectively in terms of the over time. In turn, this would not have frequency of these type fossils (Binford & stimulated Harold Dibble to introduce Binford 1966: 238; Kozlowski 1992). The perspectives from New World archaeology emergent patterning revealed, in Bordes‘ as explanations for the dynamics of lithic term, l‟évolution buissonante — branching variability, and overall we would not have (or bushy) evolution — through which arrived at our understanding today of the archaeologists could recognise that lithic variable trajectories of Middle Palaeolithic assemblages, and thus behaviour, evolved in technologies that resulted from Neanderthal complex ways as did biological species behavioural flexibility (Hovers & Kuhn (Bordes 1950a). Straus & Clark (e.g. 1986) 2006). Of course one can argue that others coined the term phylogenetic paradigm to 203 Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Lithics 30) describe French lithic systematics, which to formative period — that in which he was some seemed self-contained and inward developing his method and interests and looking, although which, with the benefit of essentially laying down the contribution for hindsight, had a profound effect upon later which he is mainly remembered — twentieth century Palaeolithic archaeology. essentially spans two decades from 1950 to Sackett (1991: 132), for example, has 1970. Subsequent to his studies of the defined the ‗Bordesian era‘ as the period northern French loess sites in the late 1940s with which ―we enter modern times‖. his work progressed from initial outlines of Bordes‘ method ―is [still]

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