Origin of the bow and arrow ?

Question

There seems to be no clear answer as to how/when/where the bow was invented as a weapon for hunting and war. Most of the peoples of the world have at some time, used it. But how it came to their hands seems to be a mystery, how a plains Amerindian or an Aztec had them, how a Pigmy of the Congo forest or a Bushman in Kalahari had them, the same as an English, Syrian, Greek, Parthian, Mongol, etc. Does anyone know where one can find the history of the invention and how it came to be disseminated throughout the planet?

Thank you Glenn. Your answer is good. However it is another hypotheses on how the bow came into being. By the way, Aztec atlatl shafts were feathered, but atlatl or aboriginal equivalent cannot be the source of the bow as they were used in Mexico and Australia and bows were better developed in Asia and Europe.

Seems there is only one day left for this question. Reading the kind replies and refering to other sources, I think, angain, another hypotheses, that archer has an older history than that it is mentioned and may have been originated in Central Asia from where the Semites took it to the Middle East and Northern Africa wher the Bantus spread it southwards, the Aryans to Near Asia and Europe, Mongolic tribes to the Far East, and the people that became the Amerindians took it to America. I'm sure someone has a better theory and I hope to read it sometime. Thank you all.

Answer 1

Let us think about it. The bow has been around for several thousand years. Composed of a simple piece of wood, sinew for a string, tied at each end when the bow was bent. When was it invented? Nobody knows for sure, but estimates range from 10 to 20 thousand years ago.

The Bible speaks of bows in several places, even of shooting animals for meat. Also used in warfare, the Israelites used the weapon to fight against their enemies. These simple but effective bows protected them, fed them and kept their animals from predators. No wheels, no cables and no over-draws. For these thousands of years this simple stick and string was used all over the world.

Various cultures used variations of this weapon. The Turks used short recurves for horse fighting.

These nomadic tribes were the scourge of the land and men like Genghis Kahn wiped out the land for hundreds of miles. The sword and the spear were also in use but the principle weapon was the bow. It was safer to shoot from a distance then to fight hand-to-hand combat.

Bows were used like this through the middle ages into the 13-17th centuries. These bows could pierce armor and wipe out hundreds of men in little time. The Romans used them; the French, Germans, Chinese and English were famous for their prowess with the bow and arrow.

Today they are finding Egyptians and Chinese writings on walls of caves and monuments of humans shooting wooly mammoths and other animals with these weapons. Arrows made of straight and not so straight wood with goose or duck or any feathers they could find would be tied to these shafts. Some had no points at all, just sharpened to a point on the tip. Others with flint rocks hammered into a not so sharp wedge, tied to the split-wood end.

From the caveman to the American Indian and African pygmies, they used these crude arrows and some cultures still do. These weapons were of mass destruction wiping out hundreds of the enemies with a single arsenal of several hundred arrows flying all at once. You have seen it at the movies and that is exactly how it worked.

The English in the 14th century made it mandatory that all males over the age of 14 years practice archery on Sunday afternoons. It was their main defense against armed conquering armed forces. In one French-English battle, the waxed bowstring made the difference between winning and losing in a rainstorm.

Answer 2

The bow was invented independently in several areas...Eurasia, Southeast Asia islands, the Americas.
An intermediate step between spears and 'bow and arrows' was the spear thrower or atlatl. It is a handle that the spear is put on to increase the length of the arm. It allows a much longer throw, and the use of much lighter 'spears' or darts, much like very long arrows.
That is why stone points are often called 'projectile points'. They may have been spear points, dart points, or arrow points.
The step from an atlatl to a bow is not that big...you just have to figure out to use the springyness of the wood to cast the dart instead of your arm. Probably atlatl darts already had feathers to keep them flying straight.

Answer 3

The oldest known evidence of archery dates from 9000 - 8000 BCE in northern Europe. In the Americas, the bow and arrow were developed much later, but apparently independently of Old World civilizations. That is to say, somebody in the Americas came up with it without any contact from non-American peoples. The concept behind it is pretty simple and if a person has nothing else to do with their time in between hunts I can see how they might come up with it.

Answer 4

It would make sense that bows and arrows were first used in Biblical times. The Bible says that God saw that man was trying to build a pyramid (Tower of Babel) to reach the heavens. When God saw this, He made it so that they would speak different languages and go their separate ways.

Those who understood what each other was saying, went and formed their own society throughout the world taking with them their bows and arrows. Over time, each group made their own modifications to their weapons to make them as accurate as possible.

BTW back then (countries as we know them) were not separated by water. The flood that's mentioned in the Bible IS the reason why land is separated.

Answer 5

a

Answer 6

They were not created independently.

I'm not particularly sure...but I would guess somewhere in Mesotapamia. The oldest civilizations in the world. I'm ure it was first used there.

Answer 7

these spears, shafts, whatever... with feathers on the end were done because of watching birds diving in to their prey

Answer 8

spears which needed longer range were made shorter and tension of rubber was used to propel them.