Henri Louis Francois Bordes was born on December 30, 1919 in a small chataeu to Andre and Aline Alicot Bordes in the small fishing village at Rives in Lot-et-Garonne, France. Andre had been a prosperous West African trader who had returned to his native Perigord, a beautiful region of green forests, small villages and towering cliffs. Francois carried his love for the beauty of Perigord throughout his life. As an adventurous boy with a bicycle for transportation and with an interest in natural history, Bordes became acquainted with the Curator of the Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies, Denis Peyrony. By the time he was twenty-five years old, he had obtained an official permit to excavate an area at the Loc de Gavaudin in Lot et-Garonne between 1934-1946.
In 1936 Bordes began studies at the Universite de Bordeaux, majoring in botany and geology. He met his future wife, Denise Preveraud de Sonneville there. His studies were interrupted by the start of the war. He became a cadet officer in the spring of 1940 and saw active duty. In 1941, after demobilization, he went to to the Universite 'de Toulouse to continue his studies and eventually qualified in chemistry, mineralogy, and zoology. In late 1942 when the Germans occupied Vichy France, Bordes became a member of the French Resistance. He worked in a coal mine for several months in mid-1943 to avoid notice by the authorities and labor conscription. He and Denise, then a student at the Universite de Paris, decided to marry. Bordes lived as a fugitive for a while as he was then an active member of the Marquis. In 1944 he enlisted in the Free French Infanterie de Marine and he was soon to get a very deep understanding of the practical problems prehistoric hunter-gatherers had experienced in the Perigordian countryside. He was released from service in 1945 due to a serious injury he had received in November, 1944 from an exploding grenade during the Pointe de Grave campaign.
Bordes initiated contact with Raymond Vaufrey and Jean Piveteau at the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in Paris while he was still in the war. They found his unique background in prehistory and geology very impressive. His study of the loess deposits and paleolithic industries in the basins of the Seine and the Somme was sponsored by them in 1945-1946. The data he obtained from the site was the basis for his doctoral thesis that he presented in 1951 to the Eaculte des Sciences in Paris. It was also at that time that the idea of a standardized typology for the study of Lower and Middle Paleolithic industries was formulated by Bordes.
Francois Bordes, director of the Laboratory of Quaternary Geology and History at the University of Bordeaux , was a famous French archaeologist known for his studies of ancient stone tools. He is internationally known for having studied and recreated ancient stone tools from some 12,000 years ago. He studied how primitive man made his tools. Bordes duplicated some 63 tool types including the spear, points, knives, hatchets, scrapers, carvers and boring tools. Bordes made over 100,000 stone tools. To make these tools, Bordes used flint, animal bone and wood just like Neanderthal man to make them seem more authentic. Many of his tools looked so original that he had to label which tools were the real ones and which were the duplicates.
Bordes concluded there were four Neanderthal cultures
because of the differences in stone tools. He called his four groups
Denticulate, Typical, Mousterian of the Acheulean
Tradition and Charentian with the Quina
and Ferrassie subgroupings.
“Scholars dispute this theory saying that Bordes
noted stylistic, functional and chronological differences and pointed out
differences in raw material used, as well as stages of the reduction
sequence.”
When
Bordes died on April 30, 1981, he left behind his wife, Dr. Denise de Sonneville–Bordes, also an archaeologist, and three children, Georges,
Arnaud and Cecile. Bordes died in
Written by: Rochelle Nicklay
Edited By: Lillian Dolentz, 2008